


Torment | Depressing Todoroki Angst-Shots

by BlitzyWolf



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Abuse, Abused Todoroki Shouto, Angst and Humor, Anxiety, Body Image, Childhood Trauma, Depressed Bakugou Katsuki, Depressed Todoroki Shouto, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Food Issues, Homophobia, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, Love/Hate, M/M, Manipulation, Mute Todoroki Shouto, Psychological Trauma, Self-Destruction, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Self-Worth Issues, Sick Todoroki Shouto, Suicidal Bakugou Katsuki, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicidal Todoroki Shouto, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Suicide Notes, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 46,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28703457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlitzyWolf/pseuds/BlitzyWolf
Summary: The time has come for me to interminably torment Todoroki in this book of depressing one-shots...Note:- Reading the Important Information is strongly advised.Disclaimers:- All credit for the lovely BNHA/MHA characters used goes to Horikoshi Kohei.- All credit for the lovely SNK/AOT characters used goes to Isayama Hajime.
Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Todoroki Shouto, Iida Tenya/Todoroki Shouto, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin)/Todoroki Shouto, Midoriya Izuku/Todoroki Shouto, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Yaoyorozu Momo/Todoroki Shouto
Comments: 13
Kudos: 60





	1. Important Information

**Reading this is strongly advised. I've underlined the important info per each topic for ya.  
  
**

**◆** **Requests:**  
I will not be accepting any requests until further notice. Also, no one said I can't turn a one-shot into a story. So...

 **◇** **One-shots becoming stories:**  
The factors contributing to a one-shot becoming a story vary. I might just feel like actually taking the one-shot somewhere. But, for the most part, this should seldom occur.

 **◆** **What I will be writing about:**  
Really, anything with angst and Todoroki. Additionally, there will be some crossovers in this book. Some one-shots might have a ship (or more than one), but others might not.

 **◇** **Smut:**  
Welp, you can expect some smut. I'm terrible and inexperienced when it comes to writing it, though.  
Also, I will write anyone as the top(s)/bottom(s) in the relationship.

 **◆** **Warnings:**  
Located at the start of each chapter.

 **◇** **Quality of each one-shot:**  
These definitely won't be my best work, so I apologize in advance if they're trash.

 **◆** **One-shots with more than one part:**  
Determining what one-shots receive more than one part is kinda arbitrary. Like, I might post a one-shot that's 3k words that's split into two 1.5k word chapters, but I might post a one-shot with one chapter that's 5k words. You get the point. Preferably, though, I'd like to keep the number of parts a single one-shot has as no greater than three parts.

 **◇** **Posting schedule:**  
Doesn't exist lol.

 **◆** **Errors in my work:**  
I'm sorry if the punctuation gets messed up.  
Ex: a dash might turn into a hyphen ("—" turns into "-"), or there might be random spaces between italicized text and punctuation. (Same thing happens with commas and dashes.)  
Also, I won't be as strict about checking for mistakes, but if you see a mistake, please point it out!

 **◇** **Indexing (basically, some chapters might have an index, and this is how it works):**  
If there's ever something I feel the need to clarify or give more detail to than what's provided, I will indicate that there is an index (located at the end of a chapter after any potential a/n's) at the beginning of the chapter using: 𝔦. Words/phrases that will be found in the index will be marked with superscripts¹(the small 1 immediately to the right of "superscripts" is the superscript).

 **◆** **Other information:**  
\- **Please be respectful of all one-shots and ships. Don't like or aren't comfortable with the content, don't read** **.  
**

**Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy!**


	2. 1 |「Bound by Destruction」Todoroki x Bakugou

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of what happens might not be entirely realistic, but for the sake of angst and because I can, it happens.  
> (Applies to the next chapter of this one-shot.)

**Warnings (potentially apply to the next chapter of this one-shot):  
** Self-harm, self-hatred, self-destruction, suicidal thoughts/actions, self-worth issues, excessive swearing, Bakugou and Todoroki both get violent with each other and are both asses lol, suicide, homophobia. ****

[𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧]  
𝐊𝐚𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐤𝐢 𝐁𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐠𝐨𝐮

"Oi." Glaring garnet daggers at the one I hate myself for falling in love with, I set my foot atop his desk. "Oi. Oi! What, did no one teach you goddamn manners? Am I just a pebble to you? Well, Icyhot?" My eyes narrow into concentrated slits of boiling ire.

The damn fool known as Shoto Todoroki isn't discountenanced in the slightest by my domineering presence. In fact, all he's done is breathe, blink, and be alive. He's just been sitting here like an aloof dumbass while I've been poking around at his mind in an endeavor to hear him speak for once—something about his insouciant, husky voice is almost a saccharine melody to me; each note is glazed with an intoxicating, irresistible allure that drips down like honey.

With hollow, mechanical sways of his pupils, Todoroki finally meets my eyes. "Bother someone who cares," he spits with no mercy stowed away in his keen, frigid words.

 _I pay all this extra attention to_ you, I find myself thinking, _but you're always such an asshole about it. Yeah,_ I'm _an asshole for my approach, but what the hell do you want me to do? I dunno about you, but_ I _wanna keep my dignity and pride inviolate._

"Huh?" I growl while tilting my head and curling back my lips. "You're asking for the entire left half of your shitty face to be burnt."

A reaction—Todoroki's right eye of a stormy gray twitches. "Go ahead, then. What? You're not afraid of being caught, are you?" His sardonic tone is acutely reminiscent of my own.

 _Asshole._ "I'm not stupid enough to risk my luck," I retaliate as a gruff growl. "Are _you_ afraid of seeing what happens when you fight back against me?"

He sighs audibly while dropping his gaze to his desk. "What did you want?"

"Tch. Just listen to the shit flyin' out of—"

A cool, burning sensation of something firm partially numbing my cheek greets me. _What the hell?_ I cerebrate as I finally register that Todoroki is standing upright with a blank, almost rancorous scowl ghosting his lips. _Did this fucker just_ slap _me?_

"Sorry," Todoroki hisses, although he makes blatantly evident the truth through his virulent utterance. "You were in my way." A lour at last twists his lips.

"The _hell_ is wrong with you?" I snarl tempestuously while my voice creaks with venom. "You're goddamn lucky it's lunch right now. But if you think you can slap me and get away with it, you've got another thing coming, asshole!"

As Todoroki whirls around to exit the classroom, I clasp my hand around his wrist to yank him back and sit his ass down at his desk. His eye twitches once my digits seize his wrist, and his arm becomes taut as he reflexively halts the movements of his long legs. In his remote eyes of silver and turquoise resides a scorching message to me to back the fuck off, but my condescending mind augments the iron grip I've fastened his limb into as I now maneuver myself in front of his immediate escape to the door.

"Don't touch me," he spits with trembling, glacial vitriol smothering his whetted words of glass, but simply for the sake of being an asshole, I further reinforce my grip. "Bakugou..." The sonorous growl of his dripping, asphyxiating utterance generates a whispering undertone of: _way to fucking go—you're fucked._

 _Shit, I didn't mean to actually piss you off,_ I berate myself as my hand retreats from his wrist; relief pools in his eyes once his limb is free of my grasp. _Dammit, did that trigger something? Goddammit, Katsuki! Why are you treating the person you love like shit? Because you hate that you love him? No. Fucking. Excuse. Why do I always fuck everything up? It's always all_ my _fault. If I could punch myself without anyone knowing right now, I sure as hell would. Oi. He's pulling his sleeve down. That's what_ I _always do when... No fucking way._

I jab my fingers inwards into the palm of my hand and snarl, "Oi. Wait just a damn moment, Todoroki..." Once I've enthralled his attention, I espy the section of his arm that I grabbed. "You wanna explain—" _FOR FUCK'S SAKE, THAT IS_ NOT _THE WORD I WANTED—_ "your—"

Todoroki's eyelids slovenly droop down until they've ensconced his ethereal eyes, and with the brief, sharp shake of his head, he thrusts the back of his hand against my chest and forcibly shoves me aside as he flees apace from what I can only assume he sees as a demented sack of shit. "I regret ever interacting with you," he sibilates, yet his point-blank, seemingly veridical statement is tinged with something jagged and poignant.

As Todoroki shambles towards the exit to the classroom with his head dipping down and a manifest limp in his step, my lips split apart as my jaw gently unhinges from being clamped shut. I don't dare follow him, despite the warning bells booming in my head to ensure that the one I love and treat like shit is all right.

 _All I wanted...was to say, 'You wanna talk about something?' When it comes to him, it's like every fucking thing suddenly becomes a competition that I wanna win. Sure, I'm a piece of shit to everyone, but my adrenaline goes off the damn charts when I see his pretty-ass existence. I can't handle it. I'm drawn to something, but it's always the_ wrong _thing, and I never realize in time! Fuck... I just wanted to make sure he's okay—and he's clearly_ not _okay—and let him know that someone fucking cares about him, but I just fucked it up. One word. One mistake. One slip of the tongue. That's all it took. Dammit, now's a better time than ever. I feel so fucking guilty, but no matter how hard I try, I just can't_ _say that I'm sorry. Even though the guilt kills me, I can't admit the truth. Even for you, the words won't come out._

With a hefty swallow, I return to my desk and fish out the blade in my bag. Once I've extracted the silver blade which allows me a transient session of respite and satiety from my own repugnant consciousness, I stride towards the bathroom while pondering a preponderance of possible excuses to present as to why I'm late to lunch. Now arriving at the bathroom, I'm greeted with the sound of dull, stifled, heavy breathing. I raise my brows at the breaths but nonetheless proceed to lock myself into a stall and press my back to the frigid, sleek surface of the stall wall.

 _I'm so damn useless,_ I remind myself as I press the cool blade to my warm, scarred skin. _I keep asking myself why the hell I'm alive when all I do is fuck up everything with my shitty existence. Beneath my big-ass ego, I'm so fucking fragile that it hurts. I just want to seem like I_ am _somebody. Is that so damn much to ask? I want to be somebody strong—not the weak-ass, pathetic piece of shit that I really am—but look at how far I've gotten in_ that _pursuit._ A winding thread of a resplendent red froths up from my flesh and slithers unhurriedly across my arm to slink towards its silver leader. _I told myself I could live up to the challenges I faced, and before I knew it, I was climbing a glass staircase of pride and success. Didn't think I'd become fucking obsessed with living up to expectations and then some. But that's...all I fucking am. That's the person I've become. Y'know, I fuckin' hate that person._

My lips are gripped and peeled back into a vicious lour while my hands clasp the blade that burns my flesh with sharp shackles of vermillion flames. A soughing sea of turgid twinges of jaundiced regret mantles my mind as silver slides swiftly across scarlet-dappled flesh. Another string of blood is strung across my wrist; it slips down the side of my arm as though my limb is silently wailing in a sanguine-soaked stupor.

An inky teardrop. Blink. Cherry. Blink. A cherry teardrop. Blink. Falling. Meeting. Splintering. Diminutive fountains of cascading crimson. Blink. An ebbing fulmination of liquid beyond the demarcating walls. Blink. Blink. Blood. A blood teardrop. Plink. Pool. Blink. A blood pool.

 _Is that..._ "Don't tell me that's _you,_ Icyhot," I growl as another drip of blood smacks the floor from the stall beside the one I'm currently in.

Silence restrains the air before a choked, ragged voice of frost suffuses my mind. "What does it matter?" he mutters with plastic placidity varnishing his voice.

 _You piece of shit!_ "Are you fucking stupid? Your blood's drippin' onto the fuckin' floor!" I retaliate with disconcerted venom surging through my words as I begin to coil toilet paper around my self-inflicted wounds.

"Why are you here..." he gasps, yet his enervated voice strips the query-like aspect from his tone. "Forget I asked." The vague whisper of a grinding, slashing, grainy thread of what I can only assume is blade on flesh gnashes against my ears.

"You motherfucker! Stop, Todoroki," I snarl with acrimony pervading my words. "I came here for the same goddamn reason as you. I didn't know! I'm..." _I'm so fucking sorry._

His merciless voice hisses, "Make me, Bakugou. I'm not going to stop..." A lonely, visceral stutter of evinced austerity throttles his second and final statement.

With a scoff, I click my teeth together and finish the shoddy bandaging of my arm. "You better be decent, cuz I'm busting in there in _three_ seconds, asshole. Three..."

"Fuck off," he inveighs with strained vehemence in his hollow voice.

"Two..."

"Please," he pleads in a hoarse huff.

"Fuck it." I leap up to the wall of the stall separating me from Todoroki and fling myself over as my eyes absorb the sight of Todoroki's absolutely _mutilated_ left arm. "Shit!" I precipitously pin Todoroki back against the wall by pressing my palms flat against his and forcing his knuckles back against the barrier of metal.

His eyes shudder along with his body as he twists his mien into a wry scowl. "Why now...are you an asshole? If you hate me so much, then let me do this." His frigid hands twitch as I gradually release his left hand to wrap it up.

 _I don't hate you, but I acted like I did until I fucking broke you—even now, I'm still treating you like shit._ " _You_ are the biggest asshole here," I murmur as peach surges through my cheeks from the realization that I'm essentially holding Todoroki's hands. "Tell me, you asshole...do you have a death wish?" Much to my stupefaction, he doesn't struggle against me as I begin to wrap his damaged arm.

"You know the answer. Is that why you want me alive? To make me suffer?"

 _So...we both want to die, huh? Christ is this world shitty. Todoroki, I didn't know you wanted this. I didn't know you did_ this _to yourself! But I'm gonna be selfish and see what happens. I'm sorry, Shoto Todoroki._


	3. 2 |「Bound by Destruction」

[𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧]  
𝐊𝐚𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐤𝐢 𝐁𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐠𝐨𝐮

I snort lightly. "Well, if you wanna die that badly, betcha wouldn't mind if I did _this_ to the person I fucking hate." I draw his lips into mine as the ghost of a sneer massages my lips.

 _What the hell is wrong with me?_ I cogitate as Todoroki's eyes fly open. _Thought he'd slap my face again._ Todoroki shakily inhales as the tension in his quivering limbs ebbs away and he melts against the wall. _Damn. He's...fucking cute. His lips are perfect. Yet, his life's gotta be shit. Why am I making it worse? Katsuki, fu—_

With a faint grunt, Todoroki shoves back against my grasp and whips his head to the side to shatter the embrace of our lips. "Fuck off," he pants, but the rising tide of red smudging his cheeks begs to differ. "I...hate you as well." He scrunches his eyes closed for a transient moment before immediately reuniting our lips.

 _Seems like no one's kissed this handsome asshole before._ I jam my tongue between his lips as my hands migrate to waltzing across his shoulders and slithering down his sides; he releases a small, throaty grunt at my jab. _What the actual_ fuck _is wrong with me? He's basically_ asking _me to fuck him up. Love's fucking weird._ _Who woulda thought we'd go from cutting here to sharing a stall and kissing while we say we hate each other? Whoever that piece of shit is, the hell's wrong with_ them?

Simultaneously, we separate our lips, but once we do, Todoroki stares at the ground in dismay. "It's...all wrong," he pants. "My father told me that these relationships are wrong. So, why..." His eyes are painted with incertitude. "Why do I like it? It's..."

I shake my head at him and firmly grip his shoulders. "Sure as hell ain't wrong. Your shitty dad's wrong. Now, shut the fuck up, asshole—unless ya want me to slice your tongue off. Kiddi—"

"I dare you to," he grunts while attempting to wriggle free of my grasp. "Why should I believe you—an arrogant bastard—when...all my life, I've been reminded that being anything but straight is wrong?"

"Bitch, you wanna bet?" I bark at him while curling my hand into his right hand—the hand which clutches his own blade. "But your dad's a sack of shit that's full of shit that spews nothing but shit with his shit lies. Overall, he's shit." I lightly peck his lips again.

Todoroki turns his head away from me. "I hate you...I think." _I can't tell if that's more hilarious or insulting to me._ "Bakugou, do _you_ have a death wish?" A few strands of a white like the snow spill over his cheek steeped in an effervescent pink.

"I'm the same as you. Oi. You think you can hate me more than I hate you?" _This_ isn't _a fucking competition._ "Think again, damn extra."

"If we both want to die, you wouldn't mind if I bled out, would you? Think about it. Neither of us wants the other to die. So..."

 _And_ I _thought_ I _was the one with the fucked up mind here._ "A double suicide?"

He nods. "Murder-suicide or a double murder would also work," he states with unparalleled insouciance—like he doesn't give a fuck about what happens to himself or anyone else.

"What the fuck..."

"I know." He presses his lips to mine. "I'd be dead if my father knew this ever happened, but because I feel absolutely repulsed, I'd still kill myself. I don't have room to care anymore. We both want to die. As it is, it looks like we're bound by destruction, so unless you'd like us both to continue suffering, I'd say this doesn't sound half bad. I said 'neither of wants the other to die' because I never said I _wanted_ you to die, but I wouldn't care if you did."

I release him. "You're fucking cold," I sigh while contemplating his unorthodox request.

"Yes, I suppose my right half is cold."

" _Idiot._ You're fucked up." I watch as he doesn't give two fucks about the blade he casually weaves between his fingers. "Fuck it. I'm just as selfish as you are, asshole. Let's fucking die together. _Never_ thought I'd have the dishonor of saying that." I retrieve my blade from my pocket.

 _What the fuck is wrong with_ us? I ask myself while leaning my head in towards Todoroki and licking across his clavicle. _Guess this is what happens when you pair two shitty assholes that wanna die together._ This _is what's wrong._

"Y'know this is fucked up, right?" I hiss through my teeth as I slash another gash through my arm.

Todoroki shrugs before clasping my hand with his tenacious hold. "Sure. I guess this is fucked up. I don't see it that way, but believe whatever you want." He turns me to the side and presses my shoulder against the stall wall before burning away my blazer. "If we're both going to die, you don't mind if I do this, do you?" He begins to carve into my own flesh with his blade.

 _What the absolute fuck?_ "I _would_ if I wasn't busy trying to die," I spit as I wince. "What the hell... You're writing something on me?!"

"Oh. I guess you noticed." _Motherfucker._ "You can look at it when I'm done...if you don't pass out first." _Asshole!_ "Feel free to do the same to me."

A thunderous growl reverberates through my throat. "I hate that I love an absolute piece of shit. What, does shit run in the family? Ow. For fuck's sake, are you finished?" My vision blurs as I stare over at Todoroki in an attempt to see what the hell he's written on me.

"No." The asshole that is Shoto Todoroki purposefully slows his carving of my flesh.

"Ugh," I groan as the blade piercing my skin drills fangs of flame into my nerves from the sheer agony of it all.

"There."

Instantaneously ripping myself free of his grasp and pinning he who so merrily fucks with me without giving a fuck to the opposite wall, I read his upside-down words:

_"Let's fucking die together" - Katsuki Bakugou._

"I _fucking_ hate you, Shoto Todoroki." I won't deny that it honestly hurts like hell to further damage Todoroki's flesh—I'm engraving one of his own quotes onto his clean right arm, however. "I fucking _hate_ you."

He nods. "Thanks, Katsuki." _Katsuki._ "I hate you as much as you hate me. 'Let's fucking die together.'" With his spare arm that's been cut to hell and back and wrapped up with toilet paper that sags from being saturated with his blood, he gently embraces my torso. "Honestly, though, thank you. I've—ouch—wanted to die for a long time. I'm glad it isn't just me who hates myself. I spent quite a while trying to make myself unlikeable. It paid off, I guess." His lips flutter across the side of my neck as a wave of blush crashes down on my cheeks again.

That's _why you're like this? All this...because you hate yourself? The fuck is wrong with this world..._

As my throbbing head and arms cause my body to feel as though knives are dancing across my nerves, I realize that my vision is blurring what I've written into one scarlet conglomerate. "Done..." As I sink to the floor, I drag the silent Todoroki down with me.

Like lightning illuminating the night with a blazing flash of a searing white for merely an ephemeral moment, clarity returns to my vision, and I manage to read my work again:

_"I hate you...I think" - Shoto Todoroki._

I rest my head against Todoroki's chest as his arms fall over my chest and his chin settles over my shoulder. "If you really wanna know...my fucking ego only exists to hide the truth," I admit with a fading voice while nuzzling my head against Todoroki. "I'm...not strong. When I make a mistake, I beat myself the fuck up when I'm given the chance. To try and be perfect...like what they all want. Like the child me fucking dreamed. Too bad...I'm just worthless shit that can't take a hit." I close my eyes as my consciousness begins to fade, but as I listen for Todoroki's heartbeat, I realize that I've been rambling on to a corpse. "Of course... Fucking...of course. Didn't I say I wanted us to die together? You beat me to it, asshole..." A stream of tears crawls down my cheek before another one promptly follows suit. "I'm sorry, Shoto... Wish I could've...said that when you were still here..."


	4. 「Sick Daze」Midoriya x Todoroki

**Warnings:  
** Mentions of self-harm, suicidal thoughts/actions, suicide attempt(s).  
  


[𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧]  
𝐈𝐳𝐮𝐤𝐮 𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐲𝐚

“S-So, what you’re saying is that Shoto is going to be suffering for up to the next week, but he might only remember bits and pieces of what happened?” I ask Aizawa for confirmation after hearing the results of the returned lab information from a variety of tests run on Todoroki for the anomalous bullet that pierced his left shoulder this morning. “And there are no definitive feelings he’s going to be saddled with?”

Aizawa nods as his obsidian gaze drifts to Todoroki before returning to me. “Unfortunately, you’re correct. If any of his behaviors are concerning, you two will both be excused from class for the day. The effects of this Quirk are expected to kick in by tonight, at the latest. Todoroki.” 

“Hm?” The boyfriend I’ve been blessed to be in a relationship with for the past year and a half lifts his head like a dog.

“Where are you right now?” Aizawa abruptly queries while bringing a pouch of juice to his lips.

Todoroki blinks with a blank expression for a moment before replying, “U.A. Why?” 

“Just making sure you’re not delirious right now,” Aizawa sighs. “Does anything feel abnormal to you?” His brows arch to a minute degree.

Todoroki shakes his head. “Not off the top of my head.”

“All right. You two are free to return to your dorms.”

Once I’ve thanked Aizawa, I return to my dorm with Todoroki’s hand in mine. “Tell me if you feel funny, okay?” I sigh while closing the door and plopping down on my bed.

Todoroki sits beside me and rests his head against mine. “I’m sleepy,” he nonchalantly whispers.

With a grin, I peck Todoroki’s cheek and pull his head up to the pillows resting against the headboard of my bed. “Rest well, Sho.” As he slowly nods at me and closes his eyes, I pull out my phone and pop in my earbuds to engross myself in a world of amusing audio and visuals.

After about an hour and a half of watching pets reacting to their owners returning home after an extended period of time, I gently nudge Todoroki awake to see if he’s hungry for dinner. “Sho-oto,” I hum, and after a moment, Todoroki finally peels open his eyes. “Sorry to wake you up, but it’s almost seven, so I was wondering if you were hungry.”

Much to my astonishment, Todoroki responds to me with a silent glare before turning himself away from me and nestling back into a comfortable, fresh position.

_Uh oh. Shoto’s only silent like this when he’s pissed off at something. He never has a problem with me waking him up—especially when he’s served soba afterwards. Wait. Unusual behavior… Did the Quirk take effect?_

“Sorry, Sho,” I sigh while gently threading my fingers through his hair in an endeavor to provoke another peculiar reaction from him. “I didn’t mean to annoy you or any—”

“Don’t talk to me,” he mutters with achromatic words of coruscating vexation. 

_Wow, I’m actually…very intimidated by that._ “S-Sorry…” I stutter out of habit. 

With a wry, menacing lour, Todoroki pierces through my eyes with his glacial daggers of silver and turquoise. “Izuku, are you deaf? What did I just say?” 

I avert my eyes from his—it’s honestly incredibly painful to see my own boyfriend’s typical insouciance be converted into plumes of fiery ire directed at me through his beautiful eyes. “Not to talk to you…” I murmur dejectedly.

 _He doesn’t mean it,_ I remind myself. _It’s the Quirk. He might not even remember any of this happening. Don’t do anything stupid, Izuku. Still, though. He’s never been mad at me before—except the time when I almost broke my arm because I was pushing myself a bit too much, but even then, it was more like harsh worrying—so to hear and see him act like this makes my chest ache._

“Keep it that way,” he asserts with a wince while pressing his right hand to his forehead. “Your voice is giving me a headache.”

Refraining from poking the peppermint polar bear with my voice again, I offer him a sympathetic look. He shakes his head at me and sits upright; his resplendent eyes stare down at his left hand as his digits gently quiver. With a sigh of what I presume is discomfort, Todoroki rests his right elbow on his knee and leans his cheek against his right hand.

 _I have to ask him about what’s going on_ , I think while snatching my phone and shooting my boyfriend a text. _I should write down everything that’s happened._

 **Me:** Are you feeling okay?

Todoroki’s phone vibrates in his pocket, and once he retrieves it and reads my message, he blinks in what seems to be a combination of muddled, dull emotions. “No,” he states candidly.

 **Me:** Can you tell me what’s making you feel not okay?

“A budding migraine. It feels like my whole damn body is on fire, yet I’m shivering. It’s difficult to breathe, but I can breathe perfectly fine. Dammit…” His uncharitable voice slithers into silence as his body droops forwards towards the bed.

_You never curse this often, either. Gosh, I feel terrible for you. I wish I had a Quirk that could assuage the pain and discomfort._

**Me:** Can I get anything for you? Something to eat or drink? An extra pillow or blanket? Some kind of medicine?

Although a part of me is inclined to believe Todoroki will request everything I offered to him, he merely mutters, “Water and a painkiller.”

Once I return with a glass of water and a bottle of painkillers, I hand Todoroki the glass and a pair of pills. He gulps them both down and curls himself into a snug ball atop my bed. I sit in front of him by his legs and begin to leisurely massage his back—he always does this to me whenever I’ve had an especially arduous day. He breathes heavily, but I’m astonished that he hasn’t snapped at me and told me never to involve myself with him again. 

_I might regret this, but I can’t help myself._ “I love you,” I whisper beneath my breath as I kiss his hand.

Much to my absolute chagrin, Todoroki forcibly shoves me off the bed as he inveighs, “What the hell is wrong with you?” Not a threadbare vestige of remorse suffuses his voice or eyes.

Even though I’m acutely cognizant that Todoroki likely has minimal control over anything he’s doing, his words still feel as though they’ve fiercely struck my cheek as I pick myself up from the floor. Tears roll across my eyes, but I swiftly rub them away.

 _Even when I know he doesn’t mean it, it still hurts to hear him say all this to me with such conviction. It’s like he doesn’t care about me. It’s like…he’s on the verge of_ hating _me. It’s not true. I know it’s not true, so why do I feel so guilty? Like…I can’t be enough for him because I can’t meet his needs properly? I’m sorry, Shoto._

“Are you trying to make this harder for me?” Todoroki sibilates.

My heart sinks into my stomach as I shake my head. A crestfallen expression overtakes my countenance as I grab my bag and use it as a pillow.

“You could’ve fooled me,” he scoffs.

My eyes finally expel the saline liquid twisting the world around me as I close my eyes and brood over all the things I’ve done to aggravate my boyfriend’s irate state. Mistakes, things I should have done instead, different outcomes that could have transpired… Possibilities haunt and mock my mind as crystalline creeks cascade from my eyes and guilt and regret cut through my chest like blades.

 _I’m sorry for being a failure when you need me the most, Shoto,_ are my final thoughts before an unrestful and eye-burning repose strangles me from reality.

Awakened by my alarm, I sigh as I shut it off and shift my stiff body to stand. I bite my lip as I gently rock Todoroki’s shoulder, but once I’ve woken him up, he offers me a few saturnine blinks as his expression sinks.

“Are you feeling okay, Sho?” I ask somewhat reluctantly while mentally steeling myself to hear him snap at me.

Todoroki simply nods, but his disconsolate eyes present quite the indicator to me that his implicated feelings are duplicitous and varnished with an ulterior motive. Although he’s never been loquacious, Todoroki’s silence never ceases to beg the question of what it is that occupies his mind. So, as I briefly observe the frequent twitching of his expression, the way his half-lidded eyes carry the gaze of silent, fell judgment, and his occasional exhalations of what seems to reflect regret, I can’t help but wonder what goes on behind that expression, those eyes, and those sighs.

His mien softens into a neutral expression. “Sorry. I… I’m just tired,” he finally replies in a whisper that’s been elevated slightly from being inaudible.

 _His mood completely changed from yesterday._ “You can talk to me, Shoto. You’re staying here today rather than going to class—no exceptions.” I slowly slide my fingers between his to lock our hands together.

“I’m fine, Izuku. I’ll…still attend class.” He groggily lifts his head, but simply doing so seems to sap his energy.

“No,” I sigh while patting his pillow as a gesture for him to rest his head again. “Shoto, I want to help you.” My eyes now flick up to his expression, and painted in translucent rivulets are the tears which spill from his glassy, unhurriedly-blinking eyes.

Despite the glistening tracks of budding, swishing emotion running down his cheeks, he repeats, “I’m fine.” He offers no attempt at brushing away his tears, but the thought of seeing Todoroki himself with streams of silver pouring from his eyes tightens my chest; the reality of those streams plinking from his chin to his hand is a serrated knife sawing at my chest. “I can—”

With my spare hand, I cup his tear-stained cheek. “Shoto…do you wanna talk about it? You’re crying… I’ve never seen you like this before.” Not quite certain of how to comfort the boyfriend that I’ve yet to see with tears licking his cheeks until now, I press my fingers against his with moderate force.

His free hand clasps the wrist of my hand that tenderly thumbs across his jawline and cheek. “It…feels like I’m a wooden sword in a water-filled sheath of glass,” he maunders like the gradual, mechanical rotation of cogwheels. “I can’t breathe. It’s all blurry. I’m closed off from the world in this sheath of isolation. I can look out to see the world and the world can look in to see me, but all I am is an object being carried around. I wait…to try and breathe, and suddenly, I’m free. It all seems so clear. I can breathe. But…I’m simply being drawn for my usefulness—that is why I’m alive. 

“When my job is done, I’m sent back into that horrible sheath. I want to cry, but the world would see, and that embarrasses me. I’m made of wood, and so I slowly rot. Rotting or not, I’m alive, and I continue to be drawn…until that rot eats away the entirety of what I am. I can't drown—wood can't drown. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to. Izuku, I feel claustrophobic in this damn sheath. I’m itching to escape, but I can’t get out on my own. It's killing me. But…no one would miss a dull, rotten wood sword. I just feel heavy. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to do anything. I’m bored, but I have so many things to do—I just don’t want to do them. Izuku…”

As his tears disperse across my fingers and lick at my palm, I find myself with lowered brows and a sympathetic expression. “Shoto, I love you for who you are—not because you’re useful to me. I mean, o-of course you’re useful, but that’s not the reason why I’m with you.” 

“I just can’t believe that. Even if it’s true, my mind rejects the truth.” As though ashamed of himself for admitting the truth, he buries his disconsolate face into a pillow and exhales deeply. “Sorry. I don’t want to burden you further, so I’ll be quiet.”

I shake my head. “You’re never a burden to me, Sho,” I assure him with my voice wavering somewhere between a whisper and a soft version of my normal voice.

I receive no response from him. For the remainder of the day, he’s essentially been a torpid cocoon of drowsiness without falling asleep. Tears frequently begin to drip from his eyes, and yet his expression is seemingly fixed in place. Despite his being in an aloof daze, I can feel from looking into his drooping eyes that he feels like he’s drowning. Although I’ve endeavored to free him from the glass sheath in which he resides, he refuses to budge. Even though he’s drowning in solitude, he refuses to be granted liberty from it—like he fears being exploited. Regardless of how I approach him, he either nods or shakes his head, shrugs a bit, or offers no further response. 

The next day arrives, and when Todoroki awakens, he greets me with his mundane voice. “Good morning.” He rubs his eyes a bit and winces while pressing a hand to his stomach. “I’m hungry.” He sighs aridly.

 _Did the effects of the Quirk wear off?_ “I-I mean, you kinda wouldn’t eat for the past few days… But, how do you feel, Sho? Both physically and emotionally, how do you feel?” I tilt my head at him.

He shrugs. “Physically, debilitated and groggy. Emotionally…nothing. I feel nothing. I feel empty.” His head shifts from left to right a bit as though he’s nodding off. “It’s cold—like there’s a constant draft extinguishing the flames. It’s like I’ve been isolated in a transparent sheet of ice. It’s all the same, but my lenses are a bit different. Even if I wanted to care about the things that are ‘close’ to me, even the thought ends up falling into a void. Regardless of who and what I see, nothing means a single thing to me. The feelings I might have had seem like they flash in my mind as an indicator of what I should be feeling, but in the end, those feelings are suffocated. Despite that, emptiness seems to aggregate. 

“Numbness insidiously consumes your feelings. They tingle—you can still feel them, but they’re so dull that it’s as if they don’t exist. The stultifying repetition of not caring and being unfazed becomes normal. No matter how you might try to fill up the void that drained your feelings, you only end up with less. No matter how you might try to reach into the void to retrieve what you lost, those feelings are always just out of reach. No matter how much you might hope or wish to feel something—to not be empty to remember what it feels like…for just a moment—the void devours those hopes and wishes without remorse. 

“It’s all dull. Why do I wake up? Why do I eat? Why do I move? Why do I go to school? Why do I do my homework? Why do I do any of it? I do it for the sake of doing it…like my life has no meaning other than to do what I know. It’s dull. It all seems pointless. I’d like to find a meaning for it all, but that void tears away every possibility I stumble upon. I just keep walking. I walk with no end destination. I walk, but I still look both ways before crossing the street. I walk without a reason for walking. I walk, but I can still see the trash that’s been discarded onto the sidewalks and streets. I walk the same, similar paths every day. I walk, but I’d still return something to its rightful owner if it were to be dropped. Walking is tiring. I don’t know why I keep walking. Regardless of what riveting events may occur while I walk, I’m still just walking, and that’s all it ever is—walking. I want to run, but my legs are no longer capable of it. All I can do is walk these familiar paths until the day comes when I stop.”

Nonplussed. I wrap my arms around him and muster up the meager remnants of a smile. “Empty or not, I still love you, Sho. I’ll walk beside you. I’ll cross the street with you. I’ll help in pointing out the trash on the ground. I’ll give you a hand in giving someone else a hand.” I plant a brief kiss on his cheek. “Why don’t we get something for you to eat, though?”

Todoroki loosely returns the embrace. “Thanks, Izuku. And yes, I’m hungry, so that would work out nicely.” He releases me with a sigh. “You’re not bothered that I don’t feel anything regarding our relationship?”

 _Even if a Quirk wasn’t responsible for this, I would still want to be with you._ “Not at all. I still love you, and I always will. Even if your emotions have been, well, I-I guess voided, I’m happy that you would still want to be in a relationship with me at all.” I intertwine my hand with his and help him up from the bed and to his feet.

Although Todoroki behaves relatively “normal,” or at least akin to his typical behavior, in his eyes is a perpetual vacancy, and in his voice is a perpetual placidity.

Once my alarm sounds again, I inquire as to how Todoroki is feeling, and he replies, “A bit…out of sorts.” He shakes his head with the brief shake of his head.

“More physically or more mentally?” I ask while Todoroki yawns and runs a hand through his greasy, somewhat tangled, mismatched hair. 

He blinks heavily. “I think I’d say more mentally. Ah. Izuku?” His hands slide with him along the bed as he sits upright and stretches back. 

“Need something, Sho?” I bring him into a gentle embrace.

He pins his left palm with his nails. “A shower. I’m going to shower at my dorm.”

“You can take one here, if you’d like,” I offer while my arms retreat from around him.

“I guess I’ll grab some clothes from my dorm.” Whipping off the blanket covering his lower half, he swings his impressive legs over the bed and soon departs from my dorm to his.

_He seems oddly…normal. I shouldn’t be so quick to judge. Something’s going on, but what?_

Once Todoroki returns, he slinks off into the bathroom, and after a moment, the hissing spatter of the shower spritzes through my dorm. 

_Click!_

It sounds like something clattered on the floor—that specific kind of clinking was distinct from the tumbling, dull bumps of bottles tipping onto the floor—but I have no idea what on earth it is; it definitely sounds like some kind of metal, though.

After finishing up in the bathroom, Todoroki expels a barrage of steam from the bathroom as he opens the door. Fully dressed in a turtleneck sweater and a pair of jeans with damp, slick hair that I honestly have an abrupt desire to chew on, Todoroki plops down on my bed. He picks up his phone and checks the time.

“Want to eat before going to class?” he questions as his stomach growls. “I’m hungry…but I feel sick.” With a soft sigh, he closes his eyes and stands up.

As he slips his hands into his pockets, I gently clasp his left forearm, but much to my stupefaction, his arm becomes taut. “Sho, w-wait. If you’re not feeling well, then we’re staying here today.” He tilts his head to look at me, and as he does so, he slowly attempts to pull his arm from my grasp. “I can bring you something to eat, but I think you should rest here.”

“I’m well enough, Izuku,” he assures me as I free his arm from the hold of my hand. “It’s nothing severe.” 

“Well, I just wanna make sure… You never know. But, did something fall on your arm while you were in the bathroom?”

_Though, it didn’t sound very heavy, so it shouldn’t have caused a bruise. Yet, grabbing his arm there was arbitrary. So, this was either fortuitous, or his arm’s been affected in a relatively large area. Then, what happened?_

Todoroki shakes his head. “No. If you heard a clunk of some sort, that was my belt buckle. Sorry if I worried you.” 

_I don’t think a belt buckle would sound quite like that, but I could just be remembering how I heard it incorrectly._ “No, no, it’s all right, Sho. But is your arm injured, then? S-Sorry if—”

“It’s just a bruise from a few days ago.”

_Something tells me…that’s a lie. Oh. Is that what it is? Does he feel like he has to lie? If that’s the case, then is he not hungry but feeling well? Or… This is confusing._

I frown a bit. “Um. Then, can I see it? I-I don’t mean to sound weird, but I’m just worried.” I hesitantly meet his eyes, but the moment I do, he glances to the floor and shakes his head. “Sho…that really concerns me. I just want to make sure you’re okay.” I lift myself from my bed and stand beside him.

“I’m…self-conscious, I suppose,” he sighs while rolling his fingers between each other. “I promise it’s nothing major, Izuku.”

 _The more you try to reassure me, the less I believe you, honestly._ “Sho, I’m not going to judge you. I think you’re beautiful and handsome. I’d love to see more of you. Erm. That…sounds a bit awkward, but you know what I mean. And you usually end up burning through the left half of whatever shirt you might be wearing if you use your left half. So… I mean, w-we could work on—”

“I’m sorry, but no.”

“Shoto, it feels like you’re trying to hide something from me. I’m not mad or anything, and I never will be, but I just want to know the truth. Though, I-I’m not accusing you of lying.”

His expression wilts. “I…can’t. I can’t tell you.” His gaze remains fixed on the floor:

“I don’t want to pry, and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I want you to either tell me or show me, Shoto…” I slowly slide my hand into his. “You can trust me. I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m not going to think poorly of you, or judge you, or try and correct you. I just want to know the truth.” My eyes drift towards the movement of Todoroki’s spare hand, and he soon grasps his left sleeve; his hand trembles.

“I…” he begins, but his fingers curl around his sleeve as he winces. “I… I… The words…” He bites his lip before inhaling and exhaling deeply. 

“It’s okay, Sho. Take as long as you need.” A smile forms across my lips.

With a long sigh, his shoulders rise before leisurely descending. “Izuku, I…hurt myself.” The room falls into a transient fog of silence before Todoroki’s breath is dented, and he parts his lips to speak again. “I lied about my belt hitting the floor to produce that sound. I was reaching for my jeans, but…the blade I brought here fell out. I should’ve done it in my own dorm, but I didn’t want to take longer than I had to. I just…couldn’t resist giving in.” He rolls up his sleeve to reveal bandages covering the entirety of his left arm. “I’m sorry…”

 _Is this…just because of the Quirk, or has this been going on longer than that?_ I ask myself while my eyes widen and blur at Todoroki’s bandaged arm. _Shoto…_

“Don’t be sorry, Sho,” I whisper with warm solicitude infused into my words. “I’m glad you told me, and I’m so thankful for that, too. Um. Do you wanna talk about it?” Todoroki silently shakes his head. “If you ever change your mind, I’ll always be here for you to talk to, okay?” He nods as he rolls his sleeve back down, and he scoops me into an ardent embrace.

“Thank you, Izu…”

After cajoling Todoroki into resting, I delivered some soba to him and casually conversed with him. It all still felt somewhat awkward after the actualization of what had transpired while Todoroki was in the bathroom, but I was grateful that he decided to speak at all. 

Now forced back into reality from the vexing shrieks of my alarm, something feels eminently wrong. I reach over to my phone to flood the room with silence, but my fingers instead stroke across a piece of paper. Sliding the paper out of the way, I shut off my alarm and glance over my shoulder to ask how Todoroki is doing, but my boyfriend isn’t beside me.

“Shoto?!” I gasp while leaping to my feet. “Shoto?” As a wriggling haze of apprehension seeps into my mind and fills my lungs, I check my bathroom, but still no sign of Todoroki.

While rushing to grab my phone, I read the note I found atop my phone:

_Izuku, I can’t explain why, but I want to die. I assume you’re reading this when you wake up to your alarm, so… I thought about it a lot last night. All because of a Quirk being used on me, right? No, not completely. My memories of what’s happened aren’t the most reliable, either. But I’ve had depression for the past two years, and lately, I’ve been drifting towards thinking about ending it all. I just didn’t tell anyone about it, and I guess I hid it well enough for no one to notice. It kind of hurts to know no one knew the truth, but that was entirely my fault. But I digress. Izuku, the Quirk amplified my negative feelings rather than injecting me with them. Sometimes I’m angry, and I lash out, act impulsively, etcetera. Freezing Sero at the Sports Festival was an instance of it. Sometimes I’m sad, and I end up also feeling lonely. It isn’t the kind of sadness you experience for just a little while, either. When I’m sad, I usually progress into either closing myself off, or feeling empty. Speaking of feeling empty… Sometimes I’m empty, and I feel detached from my emotions, my actions, and reality itself. Everything is so cold—including myself. Sometimes I’m self-destructive, and I cut through my flesh without any real reason driving it, or I do it because I hate myself. I started cutting just a few months ago, but I always cut in places I never needed to show. Yesterday, I couldn’t help it. The urge was unbearable. It felt so good to me. I just wanted more. Anyway… Sometimes I’m suicidal. I’ve contemplated attempting many times before, but you’ve always been here with me and for me, and I didn’t want to hurt you by suddenly leaving you. The Quirk made it so enticing. So simple. So easy. Such a good choice. Such a perfect answer. Such a pain-reliever. I can’t fight it. I have a blade in my pocket, and I can’t fight it. I’m holding your hand as I write this, but I just can’t fight it. I’m sorry, Izuku. By the time you’re reading this, I’m gone. I went to my dorm and slit my wrists. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Izuku. I’m so sorry. I don’t want to do this to you. I’m sorry. Izuku, I’m so sorry. I love you. I love you so much. I wish I could’ve expressed just how much I love you, Izuku. I’m so sorry. Please stay strong. Please don’t make the same mistake. Please, Izuku. I’ll be watching over you, Izuku. I’ll love you from here. I’m sorry… Goodbye, Izuku. I love you._

Rivulets of a saline liquid pour down my cheeks as I pull on the handle of Todoroki’s dorm, and astonishingly, his dorm is unlocked—he anticipated that no one would find him in time. I flick on the light, and a whitish-yellow hue saturates his Japanese-style dorm. Frantically scouring his dorm for him, I notice his cerise hair resting upon a pillow on his futon.

“Shoto!” I cry as my heart throbs through my head and my breaths rasp my voice. “Shoto!” Boiling emotion eats away at my stomach itself as I shake his shoulder in an attempt to provoke a response from him, but it’s absolutely futile—Todoroki isn’t breathing. “Sho…to…” My hiccupping breaths threaten to strangle me as I lift his left arm from being tucked away, but I promptly release it upon seeing the crimson, sanguine, and cherry-black stains of blood across his wrist, his arm, his pillow, his face, his blanket, his futon…

 _All this time…and I didn’t know!_ I inwardly wail as I curl up on the floor beside Todoroki’s futon; unstable gasps flood from my mouth, stifled sobs trickle from my throat, and abundant tears rain down from my eyes. _Shoto, I told you could talk to me, didn’t I? I… Shoto, I didn’t know how hurt you were. I never noticed anything! I’m so sorry! You tried to tell me, didn’t you? But I…never heard the undertone of desperation. I know you don’t want me to be sad, and you want me to be happy, but the person I loved the most just…killed himself. Shoto… Shoto, if you’re somewhere out there, please tell me you’re at least happy now. Because…I guess I wasn’t enough to make you happy._


	5. 1 |「No More」Yaoyorozu x Todoroki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note: Shoto is 6'2" (about 188 cm) and 28 years old. Momo is 6' (about 182.9 cm) and 29 years old.

**Warnings (potentially apply to all chapters of this one-shot):**  
Eating disorder(s), body image, self-hatred, self-worth issues, mentions of gender stereotypes.  
  


[𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧]  
𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐨 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐢

Everything was perfect. Shoto had vanquished his teenage demons, fallen in love with Momo Yaoyorozu, graduated from U.A., married the love of his life, and was blessed with a young, healthy daughter. Both Shoto and Momo had supportive friends from 1-A that they kept in touch with, and every now and again, they would all meet up and spend a few hours playing board games and discussing whatever was on their minds. Everything was absolutely wonderful.

However, after only a few years succeeding Shoto's marriage to Momo, Shoto found himself eating significantly less than what had been his usual. How did this come to be? Shoto honestly wasn't sure, but the thought of simply eating less likely derived from a fortuitous recollection of when he had suffered from a variety of eating disorders as a young teenager.

When Shoto was in his early teen years, he gradually came to the pernicious revelation that he was utterly repulsed by his own body. Those around him usually looked so lean and perfect to him, but whenever he saw himself in the mirror, he poked at his flaws and turned his nose up at the creature staring at him from the reflective glass panel. He figured that it wouldn't hurt to cut down how much he ate each day, and thus began his debilitating pursuit of shaping his body to "perfection." Of course, his perception of "perfection" was immensely warped, and sooner would he have found himself dead than would he have been able to attain such "perfection."

At first, Shoto found the process of starvation to achieve his goals to be incredibly arduous and difficult to maintain. To compensate for what he viewed as eating far too much from being unable to successfully force himself to abstain from eating, he eventually formed the habit of purging the majority of what he ate. That physically and mentally degrading habit was exacerbated with time, and Shoto had earned himself a crippling detestation of eating. However, the process of purging—shoving his fingers down his throat and gagging and coughing until he could finally empty himself of anything he had previously consumed—was far from pleasant, but it mitigated the guilt which throttled his mind whenever he ate.

Despite the numbers on the scale decreasing, Shoto still wanted to lose more weight. No matter how he looked at himself, he simply thought he looked ugly. In his eyes, he was fat, and yet he was cognizant that he was underweight. In his eyes, he never _appeared_ to be underweight.

As his eating habits diminished and his body continued to wither away, however, his sister confronted him about how little he had been eating and how much weight he'd lost. Shoto denied that he had been racked with any kind of eating disorder, however. Being the motherly sister she was, Fuyumi dedicated much of her time to helping her youngest brother recover. Her efforts truly did pay off, and for about a decade, Shoto had been freed from his shackles of self-induced starvation.

Yet, many years later, there he was—hunched over on the floor with one hand pressed against his livid stomach and the other pressed to the back of his throat—and he couldn’t have been more disappointed in himself.

Swishing a mouthful of water around his mouth after vomiting up the diminutive portion of his dinner that he'd choked down, Shoto looked up into the mirror behind the bathroom sink. The well-built Hero of fire and ice had been swallowed up by the return of his past propensities that led to his disordered eating. What replaced the venerable man was someone who threw up every "meal" he ate and evaded eating whenever possible.

Of course, Shoto never wanted to worry his wife and child, so he would still force himself to sit down and eat at least a fifth of whatever was prepared for the meals he was present for.

Once Shoto finished up in the bathroom, he headed off to the kitchen for a glass of water. On his way, however, he encountered his beautiful daughter with a quizzical expression twisting her mien.

The seven-year-old daughter of Shoto and Momo was named Sayaka, and her straight, jet-black hair was shoulder-length with natural highlights of gray and crimson that resembled Shoto's evenly divided hair. She had one onyx-colored eye and one silver eye with long lashes of charcoal. Sayaka was fairly reserved but incredibly polite, and although she usually wasn't a talkative person, she could talk herself to sleep if she was to speak of something which interested her.

Before Shoto could open his mouth to speak, Sayaka inquired, "Are you okay, Dad?" She craned her neck to meet her father's conflicted eyes.

Although discountenanced by the fact that his own daughter was asking _him_ if he was okay, Shoto's neutral expression didn't waver. "I felt a little sick," he replied with his usual pedestrian insouciance. "I'm all right, Sayaka. Ah, can I ask you not to tell Mom about any of this?" As Sayaka nodded, he sighed in relief. "Thank you. Speaking of her, do you know where she is?"

"Mhm! She's on the phone with...um, I think Deku? She's outside." She stood atop the tips of her toes and outstretched her arms to her father.

Shoto nodded and scooped up his daughter into his arms; his expression softened as the elusive sight of a jubilant smile from Sayaka graced his eyes. "You're smiling," he remarked in a bit of a chuckle.

Sayaka curled her arms around Shoto's torso as much as her arms would allow. "You make me happy, Dad. Like, _really_ happy."

Keen claws of culpability began to strangle Shoto's heart as he listened to Sayaka's claim, yet he plastered on a slim smile regardless. "You and Mom make _me_ happy." He gently nuzzled his nose against Sayaka's forehead and set her back down on the floor.

Is it possible to be happy without being happy with myself? Shoto asked himself as Sayaka walked off to her room. I'm not proud of what I'm doing. I don't enjoy doing what I'm doing. Honestly, I'm dismayed and disgusted. Yet, I just can't stop. I don't know how or why, but I can't. You'd think...it's as simple as eating, but fighting the immediate impulse and allure of forcing myself to throw it all up is practically impossible. Unlike before, my goal isn't to lose weight, so I can't understand why...I'm like this at all.

Shoto plodded on through the veil of gold dusting the twilight from the illuminated interior of his house. He wasn't in any hurry to reach Momo, but by the time he'd approached the sliding glass door separating house from backyard, he almost felt apprehensive to speak with her.

"I know," Momo sighed with a voice muffled and somewhat muted by the door casting the clarity of the outside sounds asunder. "I've just...been very hesitant to—like I'll be wrong. I'd feel terrible if I ended up being wrong, even though I don't believe that I am. Right. I know—priorities. This month. I promise I'll ask this month, Midoriya-kun. Tha—oh!" Momo flinched at the sound of the door being pulled open. "No, no! I wasn't expecting the door to open." She sheepishly grinned at Shoto and gestured for him to sit down beside her on the back deck. "Anyway, it was good talking to you, Midoriya-kun. Thank you! Bye."

Bending down and draping his legs over the ledge of the deck beside his wife, Shoto turned his head towards her as she expelled a soft sigh. "Is something the matter? You seem a bit off today." He placed his hand atop hers and gently fastened their hands together.

Momo leaned her head against her husband's shoulder. "Shoto, there's something I need to talk with you about." Her eyelids fell slightly as she exhaled slowly.

"Of course."

I wouldn't be surprised if it's about me, Shoto thought. I can't hide the inevitable effects of what I'm doing to myself for forever. I love them—Momo and Sayaka—but I can't seem to live up to the role of being a good father and husband when I'm doing this. It feels so selfish to be doing this to myself, but I can't help but want to repeat it again and again. I'm the happiest man in the world for having Momo and Sayaka...but I hate myself. Is that possible?

With sympathetic eyes of obsidian, Momo looked up and down Shoto's side profile. "Shoto, do you feel like you're eating enough every day?" Her husband nodded as flames of guilt scorched his stomach. "Please be honest with me... In sickness and in health, I'm going to love you, but especially in sickness is that going to show. Shoto, I want to hear about what's going on."

Frigid disgust singed the roof of Shoto's mouth. "All right... I'm sorry, Momo. I didn't mean to worry you. Keeping to myself has been one habit I've never been able to break." He nodded slowly—both to himself and his invaluable wife—as he plucked up the meager confidence to admit the truth. "Getting into this again was an accident...in both ways. It isn't necessarily that I have a poor body image, so I honestly can't understand why I'm choosing to do this." As he trailed off from ending his sentence, he nodded before Momo could reply to him. "Right. You heard correct. 'Again' is correct. It happened a long time ago, but I guess the old habits I buried dug themselves back up. Tch. I'm sorry."

The woman with hair tied up into a jet-black ponytail shook her head and lifted it from Shoto's shoulder to lock their gazes. "It's okay. You've done nothing wrong." She managed to curve her lips up into a crescent arc, yet her eyes watered with the glassy grandeur of empathy. "Thank you...for telling me. Oh, and Shoto, I need you to know that you don't have to fight everything on your own. You're you—you're no one more and you're no one less—and there's only so much that you can do on your own. So...is there anything more I can be doing for you?"

Shoto shook his head and wrapped his arms around Momo's waist. "Not particularly. But, thank you. I want to be honest with you and Sayaka, but I can't shake my old habits. It'll get better..." He wasn't sure if what he'd said was more directed at himself or his wife. "I can promise you that much." He comfortably strengthened his embrace around Momo in reassurance.

It honestly astonished Shoto that he had developed into quite the affectionate person when it came to his loved ones. Prior to his ingress into the world of love and relationships, he thought of affection as daft and frivolous. He seldom gave and received affection after his mother had been hospitalized, but Momo had been the one to gradually thaw out his frigid heart.

"And I promise to ensure that that promise rings true." She planted a small kiss on Shoto's cheek and cuddled herself into his firm hold. "Don't feel obligated to tell me anything you aren't comfortable with, okay?"

The heterochromatic man nodded slowly. "Then I suppose I should say how long this has gone on for. I've had these eating disorders for roughly...seven months? The first few months were mainly cutting down on how much I was eating. But, around the fifth month, I couldn't stop thinking about how nice it felt for my stomach to be empty, and before I knew it, I started purging again. It's...almost addicting. I don't like doing it, but I can't help but want to do it again, and again, and again... It hurts, and it's terrible for my body, so I don't know why it's this difficult for me to stop.

"It's like I'm trapped in this endless cycle of guilt—of eating, feeling as though I've eaten too much, being forced to swallow my own guilt, trying to throw it all up, and then tasting the acidic burn of guilt that never seems to dissipate." Shoto released a brief sigh, and honestly, it felt _good_ to say what had been ailing him so. "My father never would have accepted the truth when it first reared its head in my teenage years. He would have thought it childish and weak, and likely would have treated it as something easily remedied. So, I never wanted anyone to know. I always concealed any truth that was unacceptable in my father's eyes, but that grew into a habit I still have. Now that I'm an adult, these puerile problems seem like problems I would be shunned for having. As though...because I'm no longer a child or adolescent, society assumes I _can't_ have these problems, and would surely mock me if the truth were to be disclosed. So, I suppose I feel vulnerable for knowing the truth, and it hurts to say the truth at all.

"It's mortifying—the truth. I don't feel like I'm myself anymore. I feel as though...I'm simply pretending to be someone I'm not because I'm abashed by the person I truly am. Yet, that abashment is my assumed view of how I would be viewed by others. 'Grow up,' I was always told, and I did precisely that. Despite now being 'grown-up,' some of the defining qualities which always issued the 'grow up' statement still linger. But...I just can't escape. Knowing that, I seem to end up drowning myself further into this cycle without realizing it. I'm terrified of being judged for what I've become, yet I continue to exacerbate the wound. Ah... Sorry. I didn't realize how much I had to say."

Momo nodded her head in acknowledgment of Shoto's torrent of thought being maundered aloud to her. "It's perfectly valid for an adult—for anyone of any age, gender, race, etcetera—to be afflicted by that. Even if society thinks poorly of the truth, I will never think that way. Shoto, look at me for a moment." Once her eyes locked with her husband's drained, emotionally-reserved eyes, she offered up an ardent smile of affirmation to him. "I love you for you. Don't be ashamed of who you are—be more ashamed of the fact that others can look at such serious issues and think that they're insignificant and childish. There is absolutely nothing invalid about having an eating disorder, Shoto. And I want to thank you for opening up and voicing the truth..." She nodded at the one she had endowed her eternal love to—a phlegmatic man who was incredibly reticent about himself.

Shoto shook his head as a soft smile spread across his lips. "No, thank _you,_ Momo. I'm thankful to have your support. I'm thankful that you're willing to listen to me. I'm thankful...for everything about you, and everything you've done for me. I suppose I owe you this smile that I know you love." He bowed his head down to Momo's and pulled her lips into his for what felt like a transient moment of pristine, endearing doting.

I've overcome this once before, Shoto reminded himself as his lips parted from Momo's. It was an arduous road to recovery, but it wasn't impossible. The hardest thing that I had to rectify was forcing myself to eat—even if it was only a bit. I dreaded eating. I just... _couldn't_ eat. Now, however, it's more difficult to refrain from forcing myself to vomit up whatever I eat. I wish I could change what I thought then, but it's futile to brood over the past. Eat. Just eat. Eat and hold it down. That's all I have to do, but it's been dinned into my mind to demand that I either abandon eating or jam my fingers down my throat. Even though I know the answer, I still have to ask myself why I ever fell into this cycle: because society is fucking disgusting.

The couple waded in a pool of serene silence for another few seconds before Momo opened her mouth to speak. "I'm honored to be able to see your smile every day. Ever since I first saw your smile...I always wished you would show it more often." She chuckled softly under her breath. "Shoto, do you remember when I first told you I was pregnant? I don't think I've ever seen you with a more zealous smile than that, except for when I proposed to you. I'll never forget those beautiful smiles of yours."

Beautiful? Shoto pondered. I don't think my smiles are beautiful. I don't see myself as beautiful in the slightest, but you certainly are, Momo.

Shoto simply insinuated his chin into the crook of Momo's neck as he contemplated on how to reply. "You always fluster me with your compliments," he admitted in a chuckle. "No one else does it like you can. Momo, thank you for being a part of my life. Thank you...for existing. I—"

Momo's shoulders jumped at the abrupt sound of the back door flying open. "Dad!" Sayaka vociferated as Shoto and Momo turned around to face their daughter. "There's a spider on my wall. Can you get it, please?"

Shoto glimpsed over at Momo, and the two silently let out an entwined laugh before they released each other. "Of course," Shoto answered, but as he cautiously stood up to his feet, he pressed his right hand to his forehead from the feeling of his ability to breathe being sapped by the wave of lightheadedness that petrified his body.

This feeling again… Shoto reminisced as his vision was washed by a foamy haze of white. Why am I doing this to myself? I might still look at myself and hate the person looking back at me, but I don’t think I need to lose weight. If anything…I should gain some. Eat. Eat and hold it down. I just can’t do that. 

Shakily lifting himself from sitting down, Shoto took a moment to inhale and exhale deeply. “Large or small?” he asked his daughter while Momo shook her head.

“I’ll get it,” Momo replied. “You should rest, Shoto. I’ll be right there for you after this, all right?”

Shoto nodded as he thought, Am I a disappointing husband, Momo? I should be prioritizing you and Sayaka over these awful desires, but I capitulate to them almost every time. When my mind tells me to vomit what I’ve just eaten, I obey. I have to stop, but…I can’t. I gave in once just a few months ago, and now, I can’t stop. 


	6. 2 |「No More」

[𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧]  
𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐨 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐢

  
  


It had been three weeks since Momo confronted Shoto about his concerning eating habits, and for the first two weeks, Shoto succeeded in eating without retching up a single meal. However, halfway through the second week, it felt as though there was an interminable itch he was unable to scratch; the more he dug his nails around for answers that would suffice to allay the smog of withdrawal constricting his being, the more irate the itch became. Once the third week arrived, Shoto couldn't resist the deplorable temptation of surreptitiously purging just once more in hopes to also purge the unfathomable desire to do so in the first place.

So, Shoto once again found himself kneeling down in the bathroom with his head over the toilet and his fingers crawling down his throat. The alleviating feeling of his system being voided of the sustenance he'd choked down jabbed his mind with saccharine delight. Yet, as if to counterpoise such a sublime feeling, he couldn't deny that the whetted claws of self-culpability and self-abasement seemed to be perforating his chest—he couldn't forgive himself for staining his streak of superficial liberty with the fetid upheaval of the contents of his stomach.

Once the third week concluded, Shoto realized that he had so easily slipped back into his previous routines which fueled the flames of his addiction of sorts. Even with this deleterious revelation and the guilt lancing through his chest, he found it to be even more difficult to command himself to halt the actions which preceded the vomiting of his meals.

As Shoto sat beside his wife at the dining table for lunch, the frigid writhing, sloshing, and flopping of his insides deterred him from the idea of eating at least half of what was in front of him—what he'd proposed to work on for Momo—which was cold soba, otherwise known as his absolute favorite food. He twirled a bunch of noodles into his chopsticks and lifted them to his lips, but he was incredibly reluctant to shove them into his mouth.

She told me she would never be upset if I started to relapse, Shoto thought to himself as Sayaka soon joined the two at the table. I still feel like...a disappointment. I should have told her about the sudden urge I had to do that, but I didn't because I didn't want her to know. I feel guilty. I've lied to her about how I feel, and I've been covertly throwing up. I'm disappointed in myself. I feel like I'm not enough for someone like her. After all this...she's still given me her resolute support, her unwavering and insurmountable love, and truthful words of affirmation. There's no one I hate more than myself.

"Dad?" Sayaka queried, causing Shoto to jerk himself free of his thoughts. "I thought soba was your favorite food, so I asked Mom if we could make some. Soba's your favorite, right?" Once she finished speaking, she slurped up a few strands of noodles from her dish.

Shoto nodded with a loose smile, but his heart felt as though it was beginning to shrivel up. "It is. Thank you for thinking about me, Sayaka. I'm...not very hungry right now." He swallowed thickly as Momo placed her hand on his shoulder.

"How come?" Sayaka asked further.

Momo gently massaged Shoto's shoulder as she replied, "Dad...isn't feeling well, Sayaka. He'll be all right, though. I'll make sure of that." She turned to face her husband as an empathetic look flooded through her eyes. "Are you comfortable with a bite or two?" she whispered.

"But won't eating make you feel better? It does for me, Dad."

Shoto detested the truth, and equally did he detest admitting it, but he felt as though his daughter deserved to know the truth. "Sayaka, there's something I need to tell you: I struggle with eating. You'll learn more about eating disorders when you're older, but it's difficult for me to eat...and to eat without throwing up afterwards. Your mind can tell you horrible things, so I ask that you do your best to ignore those. Don't listen to those horrible things, Sayaka." He released a soft sigh as bitter fear scorched his tongue. "Right now, I can't eat. I know...I'd throw it up if I did. Sorry. Enough of that while you're both trying to eat. I'll excuse myself."

Shoto stood up and gently wrapped his arms around Momo's neck. "Thank you," he sighed. "It's incredibly strong right now, but I promise... I promise that I'll eat." He inhaled slowly as his loose grip around Momo faltered.

"Please don't force yourself to eat more than you're comfortable with," Momo reassured her husband with a nod. "It's all right to take this slow and steady. I'll be right here for you if anything happens, okay?" She firmly clutched Shoto's hand before releasing his slender fingers from her compassionate grasp.

"I hope you feel better soon, Dad," Sayaka chimed in. "I'm here for you, too. Me and Mom are gonna help you get better. You can count on us."

I'm so, _so_ damn grateful for this family... Shoto couldn't help but think as he nodded with languid ardor. "Thank you...truly. I don't know how else to say how much I appreciate you both, or how to express my gratitude, but without you both, I don't want to think about where I would be."

I don't deserve you two, he told himself while he trudged towards the bedroom he shared with Momo to reach their bathroom. But the fact that I have you both makes me happy. I am so happy...yet I'm still not happy with myself. How could I be? Shoto sharply inhaled as he stepped onto the scale and awaited the display of his weight. Ah. 130 pounds, or about 59 kilograms. Underweight... I don't know what I was expecting to see, but I feel ashamed to see my current weight. In three weeks, I lost four pounds. I suppose it could have been much worse, but I was supposed to be making progress. I'm honestly disgusted with myself.

Once Shoto sat down at the dining table for what was presumably the final time for the day, he thanked Momo for helping him to prepare dinner for their family of three—although, it might be noted that Shoto decided to prepare for himself the soba he previously refused to eat. Sayaka then thanked the two of them for the meal, and with that, they began to indulge in the fruits of their labor.

Although eminently reluctant to fill his stomach, Shoto nonetheless told himself to endeavor the complete consumption of his soba. As he gradually began to slurp up the meal he'd favored since his childhood, it felt to him as though the judgmental eyes of an audience had been dangling over his head. Bound by prickling threads of serrated silence, he dithered as he continued to slowly slip the noodles between his lips; the familiar feeling of his every move being observed, assessed, and then admonished resurfaced in his mind from the training he underwent as a child.

Like the liquid pressure of water beleaguering his head, it felt surely as though his skull would be compressed to the point of fulminating into drooling vapor, but no such spectacle ever transpired. Instead, his rampant thoughts were dismantled by the sound of Momo's enchanting voice.

"Shoto?" asked Momo, and Shoto could at last comprehend that his attention was being drawn in by his wife.

"Hm?" Shoto leisurely yet impetuously replied. "Sorry. I zoned out." He swallowed down another small clump of noodles.

Momo shook her head and offered him a transient grin. "It's all right. We all have moments like that." Her grin ebbed into her neutral expression, and to Shoto, said expression was quite the arresting sight. "I was just wondering if you're feeling okay."

"I suppose so?" he dubiously answered—he himself wasn't certain if he was or wasn't. "I appreciate the check-in, though." His eyes drifted to his bowl of soba, and stupefied was he to see that over a third of it had seemingly vanished.

I shouldn't have looked, he scolded himself as bullets of revile transfixed his mind. All of that is now inside of me. I feel sick, and I don't know why. Is it simply the feeling of anything being in my stomach that appalls me? I don't know, but I feel like throwing up. Throw it up... No. Dammit. I _want_ to throw it up. Not now. I'd feel better. I'd feel guilty. I want to. I don't want to. Do it. No. _I don't know._

"You look a bit pale." With a harrowed countenance, Momo pressed her hand to Shoto's forehead before retracting her hand. "I don't want to sound like I'm pressing, but are you certain you're feeling all right?"

 _Throw it up,_ he inwardly inveighed. Get it out. _Now,_ Shoto.

Shoto waved his head left and right as he began to rise to his feet. "I'll...excuse myself for a moment," he began, but both his words and actions were severed by the pleading grip of his wife's hand on his.

With a tenacity that spared not a fragment of clemency, Momo held fast her husband's hand as her brows furrowed a bit. "Shoto, please reconsider. Do the benefits really outweigh the ramifications? I don't want you to regret this..." Her glittering eyes of onyx implored Shoto to abstain from rubbing salt into the wound.

Shoto unconsciously nodded as he lowered himself back into his seat. "Y-You're right," he replied with a voice void of awareness and emotion.

"What's going on?" Sayaka inquired with immense concern razing her words. "Dad?"

Momo steadily released her iron grip on Shoto's hand. "It's all right. Right now, it's all right..." Apprehensive relief was drizzled over her quivering breaths.

All Shoto could do was nod as his stomach snarled at him through the blighting howl in his head which ordered him to purge his meal. He stayed his tongue to demarcate the entropy of his thoughts from the piercing clarity of reality, yet he longed to apologize for worrying his wonderful wife. With manifest chagrin washing over the very aura he emanated and suffused the atmosphere with, he espied his chopsticks on the table and dejectedly wove them back into his fingers.

"If you're not comfortable eating right now, that's okay," the obsidian-haired woman insisted in an attempt to placate the visible war of inner turmoil that her husband was engaged in. "I'm so happy that you ate today. It might seem trivial, but to me, that's something I'm very thankful for. I couldn't be more proud that you've also opened yourself up a bit more. So, if there's anything troubling you, I would be happy to hear it out. Even if it feels like there's nowhere for you to run, my arms always have room for you and Sayaka. Always. Even if society might think that it's childish or disgraceful, I wouldn't hesitate to shelter you both when you need a hand."

Why are women so beautiful? Shoto asked himself as the familiar, foreign feeling of tears licking his eyes reared its head after years of having evanesced into the recondite folds of his head. In every way...they're incredible. If anything a woman can do, a man can do better, then why aren't men capable of housing new life—human life—inside of them? Not 'could,' but 'can.' We can't, but they can. The fact that Momo could nurture Sayaka for so long while working, managing daily life, cooking, cleaning, etcetera, and then bring Sayaka into the world and into our lives...all with that same smile, that same love and devotion, and that same confidence and determination... We don't know what it's like to be vulnerable in the way that they are, nor do we know what it's like to be born as one. So, why is it that women have always seemed to have supposedly been inferior and tethered to their gender stereotypes?

"Thank you," Shoto whispered at last while blinking back the remainder of the tears which glazed over his eyes. "I was just thinking about how wonderful you and Sayaka are as who you are. But...I'm sorry if I fail to fight this urge."

"We're here for you, Dad, so keep fighting!" Sayaka cheered in her gaiety, despite her typical levelheadedness.

Shoto cracked a slender smile. "I will," he assured her as Momo scooped up her dishes and walked towards the kitchen sink.

I don't know if I can, Shoto immediately reminded himself. I love them both, and yet I still can't wring the neck of this abominable impulse to throw up. Despite their support, their love, and having them here with me in the first place, I don't think I can win this current war. I'm trying. I'm resisting. I'm fighting. But...it's not enough. Why can't it be enough? Why isn't it enough? Don't _allow_ it to be 'not enough,' Shoto. Don't you see how loved you are? How appreciated you are? How grateful they are for your very existence? Fight. Fight, dammit. But, what if...

Shoto felt as though loops of piano wire were being tangled, forced into taut states, and then snapped in his stomach as he ate just one last bite of his soba. He enjoyed the taste of the food, but such a piquant taste soon deteriorated into the rotten, mildewy taste of guilt.

It hurts, he internally growled while also bringing his dishes to the sink. It would all burn if I did. Don't think about it. No, that's not very likely to happen when my stomach is practically begging me to vomit. One more time. One more time... That's what I told myself before, and look where I am now. I hate myself. Even now as an adult, I still hate myself—especially now. I once had these thoughts and feelings under control. I was free. Where did I go wrong? Why am I repeating my past mistakes? Why can't I fucking _stop?_

Amidst the swishing dissonance and vacillation subjugating his muddled mind, Shoto ineluctably continued to drift through the seemingly infinite river known as time.

_Clack!_

The riotous chirping of porcelain dishes gnawing and snapping at each other and the sink jerked Shoto back into reality and thawed his benumbed senses. He wasn't sure how long he had been idly standing by the kitchen counter for, but he perished his curiosity regarding such a query.

Don't, he inwardly rebuked himself. "Do you need any help with the dishes?" Shoto asked, but instantaneously did he curse himself for sounding as though he had been implicating that Momo was unable to wash the dishes.

Momo smiled at him while turning her head in his direction. "I'm good here, but thank you. You're very sweet, as always." She chuckled lightly and brought together their lips for a rich, silky, ephemeral moment.

Ask her for help, Shoto internally snarled at himself as he silently relished the palpability of his wife's affection. It hurts, but I don't want to admit that. I need help, but it's extraordinarily difficult for me to ask for it. It feels as though I'm breaking, but—

"How come people kiss?" abruptly asked the curious Sayaka.

"I love your dad more than any other adult out there," Momo blissfully replied, which stained Shoto's cheeks in a faint hue of a slowly-expanding pool of vermillion. "It's a kind of love that goes beyond friendship. It binds our lives together in sickness and in health. It even brought us you, Sayaka." She stole a glance at Shoto's semi-flustered mien. "No further input, Shoto?"

Shoto shook his head, but despite the affable atmosphere, his undying urge refused to subside. "No other woman compares to your mom. Sh—" he flinched as Momo briefly locked their lips once more; he was fully aware that she was teasing him. "I never thought I would kiss anyone, but your mom certainly changed that." He tilted his head towards the floor in an attempt to obscure the phosphorescent ripening of his cherry cheeks. "Ah. I'll...be doing laundry now. I hope that answers your question, Sayaka." He briskly strode towards his bedroom to abscond from his wife's impeccable ability to fluster him.

Laundry, he reminded himself as he began weaving his austere persona back together—Momo made quick work of setting it ablaze with her vivacious brio. Just laundry. Don't. Don't. _Don't._ Shoto flicked on the light to the bathroom to retrieve his laundry hamper, and as he'd anticipated, the grinding pulses which wriggled through his head refused to cease. Dammit. Just...once more. Don't you fucking dare. I hate this feeling of something sitting in my stomach. It's just one more. Just one. Shit. I don't care about the consequences right now.

Shoto promptly locked himself into the bathroom and swiftly made his way to the toilet. Crouching down, he swallowed his pride as he soon began to vomit up his dinner. He couldn't deny that each time he heard his own gagging and coughing as he attempted to retch up his stomach contents, he was thoroughly dismayed and disgusted. Yet, the feeling of being empty fleetingly tantalized his mind with a haze of euphoria. Even though he abhorred the process of purging and its inevitable aftereffects, the addictive high from disgorging whatever he might have ingested gradually became eminently and indubitably clear to him.

With acerbic flames licking his throat, he scowled as he cleared away his repulsive mess and washed both his hands and his mouth at the sink. Although his stomach was essentially empty, his act of purging forced him to choke down the guilt of capitulating to such a "childish" desire. As he turned off the tap and placed his hand on the doorknob, he unlocked the door while staring at his reflection.

Shoto could remember obsessing over his body and staring at its every flaw to assess what he most desired to ameliorate. The mirror was simultaneously his greatest enemy and his greatest ally since it allowed him to scrutinize the body he had that he harbored vehement detestation for. He remembered watching as the lack of eating molded his body into what eventually became a cadaverous state, but no matter how he looked at himself, all he could see was someone fat, ugly, and disgusting.

Many years later, and Shoto once again faced the sight of the body he'd grown to hate every inch of. He examined the abhorrent body he was tethered to, and within mere seconds, he crumbled to his knees on the floor.

I'm not fat, but I still see the same disgrace to my eyes that I saw then, he thought to himself as he batted away the tears which threatened to spill down his cheeks. Why? Why—after all this time—can't I be "pretty" like the rest? I find both girls and guys alike to be so pretty, and yet, out of them all, Momo asked _me_ to be her husband. Why? I'm...not pretty—nor am I handsome, or even attractive—at all. Why did you want to marry someone so full of regret? With so many horrific flaws? Someone...so disgusting? It feels like I can't breathe, yet I'm breathing perfectly fine. It hurts. Can I truly call myself an adult when I think so similarly to my teenage self? I feel like a teenager trapped in the life of an adult. What the hell is wrong with me?

As Shoto pressed the sides of his palms against his forehead, he struggled to apprehend the tears which felt as though they were thickening his eyes. "I'm sorry," he whispered to himself.

As he parted his lips to repeat the phrase he'd uttered to himself, the consoling voice of his wife staunched the crimson river of his words. "Shoto, if you're not too busy with—"

With the saturnine shift of his head, Shoto glanced up from sitting on the floor to see Momo immediately crouching down, and on her countenance was a mixture of astonishment and worry painted. She inquired as to whether Shoto was all right and what had happened, but her voice sounded almost as if it had been plunged into water.

"I'm all right," he replied habitually, but the moment his words were expelled, he regretted them. "I..." Before he could revoke his previous statement, he glimpsed into Momo's harrowed eyes which seemed to know already that he had been prevaricating, and he soon found himself wrapped into Momo's emphatic embrace. "I'm s-sorry," he gasped as guilt relentlessly injected itself into his being.

Momo held fast her disconsolate husband as his lachrymal words peppered the air. "It's okay, Shoto," she gently reassured him as his chest twitched with each unsteady breath he took. "It's okay to cry. It's okay for men to cry and express their emotions. Saying that ‘men don’t cry’ just isn’t the truth, because you’re still a human, and humans were built to have and express emotion—including their tears. Men can have eating disorders—there's no shame in that because they can affect _anyone,_ Shoto. Men aren't mentally invincible, and that's okay." She rested her chin over Shoto's shoulder and slowly started to massage his back in soft circles.

Hearing Momo's calm words of affirmation in the midst of Shoto's self-loathing and self-culpability impaled his chest with a lance of wavering, whirling, watering emotion. Momo's reaction to his pregnable position was heavily anticipated, yet nothing at all like the coruscating words which his mind had been convinced that he would be lambasted by. Throughout his life, Shoto never wanted to believe that others would offer him compassion—even if he was certain they would—because he had been trained to see humans as brutal, sick, and selfish before ever assuming that they were beings with beating hearts and functioning emotions. So, upon receiving the saccharine grandeur of his wife's earnest love and support, Shoto's equanimity shattered into shards of poignant gratitude, mirthful abasement, and exasperated lucidity.

Webs of desperate sobs adhered to Shoto's throat as he tightly clutched the one who had filled him with a sense of purpose and never ceased to offer unyielding support when he most needed it. A deluge of diamond droplets escaped his eyes for the first time since what he assumed was his teenage years. A sputtering staccato of husky apologies clawed at his throat before falling from his lips, but rather than Momo demanding that he repressed his tears, she embraced the onslaught of emotion pouring from Shoto's being.

"It's okay..." whispered Momo. "Even if it isn't, I'm going to help you through this until it's okay. I will happily walk with your hand in mine through this until it's better. Even then, I'm never letting go of your hand. 'Til death do us part, my hand is yours, so don't be afraid to take it—only death can break it. It might not have a tangible form after that, but that doesn't mean I won't still be right there."

"Thank you," Shoto thanked her with a trembling smile adorned with the tails of his tears. "Thank you, Momo. Th-Thank you..." He was unable to discern whether or not he was beginning to shed tears of frigid happiness, but he started to brush them away with either hand. "No more. I'm...not going to hide the truth anymore. No more... I trust you, and keeping to myself makes it seem as though I don't. I-I know I'd only worry you and Sayaka more by omitting the truth. I'm not going to let myself drown in this hell when I know how much it would hurt you both, my friends, my family... I could never live with myself if I hurt you all because of my own selfishness. I succumbed to this once before, and I n-nearly lost everything, but now, more than ever, I have to fight." He inhaled deeply as he vowed to himself that he would vanquish the stain of ugliness he saw in the mirror—himself—and ascend as a new person that he could say he was proud of and would be disgusted by no more.


	7. 1 |「Shut-In」Iida x Todoroki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This first chapter majorly sets up for the second chapter.

**Warnings (potentially apply to the next chapter of this one-shot):**  
Implied/referenced abuse, abuse, mute character, mentions of homophobia, internalized homophobia, self-hatred, mentions of suicidal thoughts/actions, mentions of suicide attempt(s), mentions of self-harm.

[𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧]  
𝐓𝐞𝐧𝐲𝐚 𝐈𝐢𝐝𝐚

I won’t deny that the beginning of a new school year is thoroughly exhilarating, but what demarcates this year—my second year at U.A.—from the rest is that Shoto Todoroki is transferring here through recommendations. I knew him only for a year from middle school before he transferred to another school, but in that epoch was our unlikely friendship formed. After Todoroki was plunged into a new school, we would share occasional conversations over text, but such pleasant conversations were soon to be abraded by our own lives. So, to now be able to see Todoroki again, I can’t help but crack a smile.

However, the first day of school arrives, and Todoroki is absent. A day evolves into two, and two to three, and before long, a week has passed, and Todoroki has not attended class. This week is my marker that I’ve set to pluck up the confidence to inquire as to what’s going on with Todoroki from him himself—he is jeopardizing his attendance, grades, and his opportunities to learn and strengthen himself, but he’s also worrying me quite heavily.

Once class concludes for the day—many have been curious about where Todoroki has been as well, but Aizawa has yet to provide us with any definitive answers—I return to my dorm and begin to text one of the contacts I have that I last spoke to over two years ago.

 _Todoroki has always been punctual, studious, and committed, so it’s difficult to believe that he would simply skip class,_ I think to myself while pondering what I should text to Todoroki. _And, knowing Endeavor, Todoroki would surely have been punished for attempting such a heinous act. Skipping class is a great offense! Although he never directly informed me of how his father treated him, he always answered my questions before I could ask. I would want to ask how he received another abrasion, contusion, bandage, etcetera, but he would often say that he had done something wrong or messed up—that was all. It was…saddening. I still remember dressing his wounds in the mornings. Then he transferred to a different school. He never moved, but he was adamant about no one being welcome at his house. So…what’s going on, Todoroki?_

 **Me:** Greetings, Todoroki. Long time no see, yes? I’d like to ask if you are all right, and, if I may, why you have not attended class for the past week.

Mere moments later, Todoroki begins to type.

 **Todoroki:** Yeah, it’s been a while, Iida. I’m good, but I can’t tell you why I haven’t been in class. Sorry.

_That’s a relief—he’s alive and doing well. But I’m not certain of how to interpret his secretiveness._

**Me:** That’s all right. Then, what have you been up to as of late?

 **Todoroki:** Thanks. I’m not sure, though. Nothing that would be important or exciting to you. What about you?

_That’s…a bit peculiar. I would have thought something drastic transpired to decimate your attendance like this. Unless you don’t want to bring it up._

**Me:** Oh, I highly doubt I would see it as unimportant. About me, though, I’ve recently gotten back into my studying habits. I would presume you find that to be either insignificant or unexciting.

 **Todoroki:** I don’t think it’s insignificant. That’s good. I thought you were always studying around the clock.

 **Me:** That would lead to poor health. Speaking of which! Have you been maintaining your health well?

 **Todoroki:** Yeah. I did say I’m good. 

**Me:** Good to hear that, Todoroki. Thank you for the wonderful conversation. It was nice to talk to you again. I’ll take my leave, but you can expect another message from me sometime soon.

 **Todoroki:** No problem. It was nice to talk to you, too, Iida.

Turning off my phone, I expel a faint sigh from placated yet aggravated perturbation piercing my equanimity. “What on earth is he doing…and why?” I audibly query. “Where is he? Has his father been informed of his aggregation of absences? He replied to me almost immediately after I texted him. I should text him during class—even if it would be highly impolite and disrespectful of me. He can’t tell me why he hasn’t been in class... Not school, but _class._ Perhaps I shouldn’t overthink that. Nothing that would be important or exciting to me… I honestly don’t believe I’ve learned much information from our conversation. All I really know is that Todoroki is alive, he has his phone with him, and he was available to reply to me immediately. If I remember correctly, he would usually take at least fifteen minutes to reply to me before an active conversation started.” A barrage of questions rolls over my mind like a brilliant wave of the ocean, yet the impact is enough to rattle my being.

So, now that I’m roughly a half-hour into class and my conversation with Todoroki is a memory from yesterday, I surreptitiously begin to text him while taking notes. 

_This feels absolutely wrong,_ I internally sigh. _I should have simply asked Aizawa if I would be allowed to do this. Yes…I should have. But I can’t back down now._

 **Me:** How are you doing today, Todoroki? Did you sleep well or have a good breakfast?

Yet again, Todoroki replies apace.

 **Todoroki:** I didn’t know you were rebellious enough to text me during class. But, yes.

_He knows the bell schedule? Or, at least when the school hours are. Off the top of his head, at that. So, it seems he did initially intend to arrive on the first day, or at some point. Unless he memorized when class begins and when it ends. I should text him during lunch. But to get a response about that, I’ll have to say something before texting him then._

**Me:** We’ve been offered a minute or two to collect our thoughts, but after this, I highly doubt that I’ll text you until after school is completely over. Can I ask which the “yes” was to?

 **Todoroki:** Got it. I said yes to both.

 **Me:** Oh, then I’m intrigued. What time do you usually go to bed and wake up at? What do you typically eat for breakfast? I apologize for all the questions, but I have always looked up to you, so my curiosity is piqued.

He takes a moment before replying to me.

 **Todoroki:** I go to bed around 8 and wake up around 6. I eat soba. You look up to me?

_Although my brain will likely regret it, I should one day text him around midnight to see if he is awake or not. Soba, though? He always ate soba for lunch. I sincerely hope he doesn’t eat soba for dinner as well!_

**Me:** Thank you. Do you eat soba for dinner, by chance? But, yes, I have always looked up to your physical capabilities. Nonetheless, I should go now. I’ll talk to you later, Todoroki.

I promptly click off my phone and resume my note-taking. Fortunately for me, I conquered the battle of texting in class while under Aizawa’s sharp radar without being detected for the inexpiable crime I’ve now committed.

After a few hours have passed, I sit at a lunch table with Midoriya, Jirou, Uraraka, and Yaoyorozu. I wait for approximately seven minutes and eleven seconds before reading Todoroki’s message and shooting him another text message.

 **Todoroki:** Yeah. I do. My physical capabilities, though? They aren’t anything spectacular. Bye, Iida.

 **Me:** I know I said I likely wouldn’t text you until the end of the school day, but I have a question that I should have asked yesterday: has your father been treating you all right?

A few moments of deafening mental silence ensue before Todoroki begins to type.

 **Todoroki:** I guess it is your lunch, right? I’m not bothered, though. If anything, I appreciate the messages. Anyway, Endeavor has been treating me fine. He’s not quite as obsessed with training me now as he was then. I’m fine, Iida.

 _You_ do _seem to know what the bell schedule is. I’m thankful that my messages aren't irksome and tedious to answer. Still. Something doesn’t feel right. Something tells me you’re not fine. Todoroki, I want to see you in person. I’d like to confirm for myself that you’re all right. You usually had a new bruise or injury each day in middle school. So, I’m worried that you’re lying about your father treating you fine. I am curious, though… Did you move into your dorm over the break? We’re permitted to stay in our dorms over the breaks, and I saw that there was a dorm reserved for you. Truth be told, I’m curious. If you were to be in your dorm, you would more than likely have access to wherever you need during the late hours of the night, assuming the next day is a school day. He has said that what he’s been up to wouldn’t be important or exciting to me. He could have lied about when he goes to bed and wakes up. Soba would make for a convenient meal. No. I doubt he would be in his dorm. What_ reason _would he have for skipping class to simply be cooped up in his dorm for? Yet, I want to believe it’s as easy as that. He’s more likely confined in his own abode…_

 **Me:** Even so, I didn’t think I would text you now, but I have. If you appreciate these, I suppose I should send you messages more often. But as long as he’s treating you all right. Oh, and I apologize, but I have to go. I’ll text you later.

I turn to face Jirou, who’s beside me. “Jirou, might I ask a question?” 

“Go ahead,” she replies.

“Can I ask you this question after school?” I push my glasses back into a comfortable position.

Jirou offers a gentle nod. “Sure. W-Wait, if it’s anything that has to do with love advice, I won’t be very helpful.” She sheepishly pinches her earphone jacks between her thumbs and forefingers as her digits move as though sprinkling salt into a dish. 

_I don’t think I said anything indicative of my wanting love advice._ “Thank you, and rest assured, it has nothing to do with love advice.” I grin faintly as visible relief washes over Jirou’s mien. 

Once class concludes, I speak with Jirou just outside the 2-A dormitory. “I’d like to ask for your assistance with something,” I begin to explain. “It’s about Todoroki. Although I don’t think he’s in his dorm, I want to confirm that he isn’t. So, my plan is to send him a video with audio that Midoriya sent to me—I’ll do this during lunch tomorrow. The dorms aren’t soundproof, but the walls aren’t paper-thin, either. With your earphone jacks…I figured you might be able to pick up on the audio—even if headphones or the like are being used on his end. I understand that these actions are questionable, but I’m worried about him. He’s a friend of mine. I texted him and asked about his absence from class, but he abstained from answering. I suppose my fear is that he decided to abscond to his dorm from home. I won’t give many details, but his situation is far from ideal. But, I digress. Jirou, will you help me?”

Jirou blinks a few times. “Gee, you really planned this whole thing out? I’ll do it, though. It’s also been kinda worrying me that he hasn’t shown up at all. But if he isn’t in his dorm?” She tilts her head a bit.

I sigh slowly while nodding. “Thank you, Jirou. You have my gratitude. I can’t thank you enough for this.” I pause for a moment. “If he isn’t in his dorm…I’m going to visit the Todoroki residence.” A mildewy bitterness crawls through my mouth at the thought of approaching the place that racked my friend with innumerable wounds. 

As planned, I begin to walk towards the 2-A dormitory with Jirou at my side as I prepare to send Todoroki a video of birds imitating a variety of sounds—Midoriya asked me for my opinion on the video. Once Jirou and I arrive at the fifth floor of the dormitory and begin to furtively stroll towards Todoroki’s dorm, I finally send him my message with a link to the HeroTube video.

 **Me:** I was asked for an opinion on this video, but if you don't mind, I’d like to hear your opinion as well. The video is only a minute long.

Jirou now silently presses an earphone jack into the wall while the other is inserted into the floor immediately outside of Todoroki’s dorm.

 **Todoroki:** Sure. Let me watch it first.

Sour suspense suffuses the song of silence swirling through the hallway as Jirou clamps her eyes shut in concentration. Even though I suspect I’ll be forced to investigate the Todoroki residence myself, pounding trepidation coils around my chest nonetheless. After another moment of dripping, whispering silence, Jirou’s shoulders tense, and her eyes snap open. Her jaw gently unhinges as she leans up against the wall a bit, but she swiftly retracts her earphone jacks and nods vehemently at me.


	8. 2 |「Shut-In」

[𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧]  
𝐓𝐞𝐧𝐲𝐚 𝐈𝐢𝐝𝐚

With brisk, stealthy steps, Jirou and I flee from the dormitory and wait until we’ve stepped outside to finally speak.

 **Todoroki:** I suppose my opinion is that the video was fascinating. I never thought a bird could sound like a chainsaw…

“He’s in his dorm,” Jirou verbally affirms. “But I’ve never seen him enter or exit the building before. I’m wondering how long he’s been there for. But…at least we know he’s there.” She glances up to me while I dejectedly nod.

“Indeed… Thank you, again, Jirou. Truly. Thank you… I think I can take this from here, though. Oh, before I forget, though, please keep Todoroki’s whereabouts between us. I don’t think it would be in his preference for his dorm to be swarmed.”

She nods, and with that, we return to lunch. After two days have passed, however, I finally knock on Todoroki’s dorm door while having a casual conversation with him over text. Yet, as I’ve texted Todoroki more frequently, I’ve begun to realize that he tends to evade or gloss over anything personal about him. Additionally, Todoroki’s average mistakes made while he’s been typing has steadily increased.

_Tonk, tonk._

“Todoroki? It’s Iida. Tenya Iida.”

 **Todoroki:** Oh. J’m not sure abour that one. I guess I prefer blue to red, though.

 **Me:** Any particular reason for it?

 **Todoroki:** I have more good thibgs to relate blue to than I do with red. I guess your one of them, Iida. Ever since I transferred from our middle school, I’ve been lonely without you. You were my first friend. You’remy only friend.

 _Unless he isn’t currently in his dorm, I don’t think he’ll be opening the door for me today. I’ll endeavor this again tomorrow._ I now read Todoroki’s message. _You’ve never been one to compliment others, nor openly state how you’re truly feeling when there are negative or worrying connotations. Yet, you’ve done both in one text message! My heart is aflutter. Truly astonishing…_ The exultant verve waltzing through my mind lingers in a feathery flood even as the malignant grip of reality contaminates it.

 **Me:** That’s an honor. Thank you, Todoroki. Would you like to talk about it?

 **Todoroki:** Yeah. But I’m good. Sorry if I worried you. I dind’t mean to.

_My apprehensiveness grows with each passing day. I honestly don’t believe that you’re doing as well as you claim to be, Todoroki. I don’t mean to accuse you of prevaricating, but I’m worried. I care about you quite a bit, Todoroki._

Before long, I find myself standing before Todoroki’s dorm from yesterday’s tomorrow. I knock thrice, yet the only response I receive is the drawling reverberation of silence and the hollow throbs of another failed attempt to confirm for myself that Todoroki is or isn’t maintaining his own health as he suggests.

Roughly eight minutes after midnight arrives, I flush a hefty sigh from my nostrils from my inability to fall asleep within a reasonable amount of time, and the fact that what currently forces my mind into active illumination is none other than Todoroki.

 **Me:** Are you, by chance, awake?

Not discountenanced in the least by Todoroki’s prompt reply, yet wholeheartedly impregnated with solicitude for my friend, I sigh once more and untangle myself from the warmth of my bed.

 **Todoroki:** I am. Is something the matter?

I start to plod towards Todoroki’s dorm again.

 **Me:** Admittedly, I’m worried about you, Todoroki. Are you honestly feeling all right?

 **Todoroki:** I’m fine, Iida. I will eventually attend class. But, for now, I cab’t.

 **Me:** Is this related to Endeavor?

 **Todoroki:** Yes, but not in the way you’re thimking of. I appreciate your concern, but it won’t be necessary.

 _My apologies, Todoroki, but I won’t be able to believe you until I can see you in the flesh._ Now swallowing thickly as I raise my hand to knock on Todoroki’s door, I close my eyes and gently press my knuckles to the door. _Every time I think about seeing you again, my heart races. I’m incredibly concerned about you and your wellbeing, but something else seems to stoke these ardent flames, Todo—_

A click. A rotation of dull, light clunks and taps. A vertical river of ink. Gradually expanding. White. Yellow. Light. Outline. Shadow. Movement. Gray. A familiar gray. Todoroki. Shoto Todoroki.

“Todoroki?”

Standing before me from the other side of the door that’s been pulled slightly ajar is none other than Shoto Todoroki. Although obscured predominantly by the door, Todoroki soon steps aside and slovenly pries the door further back. Once I slip inside, Todoroki immediately closes the door, and as I turn to face him, I’m met with a sight I never would have quite foreseen.

Shoto Todoroki… The student I had always looked up to and that always wore his neutral, indifferent expression, now stands before me again. His brilliant eyes of turquoise and gray have been dulled to lifeless rings of vacuity. His phosphorescent skin is now sickly pale and strung up with bluish-green veins with what little skin is exposed—a scarf even rests around his neck. His expression of insouciance has been replaced with what almost seems to be jittering fear. His unwavering, muscular form has withered away into a quivering, unhealthily thin state. The liveliness in his aura now droops and pants as exhaustion and fatigue; adding another layer to this is the prominent bags sagging under his eyes. His immaculate clothing and glossy hair are now both wrinkled and unkempt.

The person standing before me is perhaps the polar opposite of the person I’ve been speaking to over text.

_He certainly doesn’t look like he’s been taking care of himself. He’s…quite frail. It’s incredibly difficult to see him like this. What happened?_

“Todoroki, have you left your dorm at all since you arrived?” I query to first assess his needs. He silently shakes his head as my heart is enveloped by my stomach. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” He simply shrugs, but I know it’s at least been about two weeks. “How long ago did you get some sleep?” He shrugs again. “Can…you speak?” His head tips down towards the floor as he shakes his head.

As Todoroki’s breaths gradually thicken, I guide him towards his bed and sit beside him. His eyes remain locked onto his hands for the ten seconds of silence which pervade the air before he finally raises his hands and begins to speak not with words…but with hand gestures—sign language. Serendipitously, I’ve known sign language ever since I was a child since my brother Tensei knew it and taught it to me.

 _I messed up again,_ he signs with his slender hands. _I permanently lost my voice because of it._ He rests his hands back into his lap, but as I open my mouth to speak, he raises his hands a bit. _I guess I should explain what happened this time. I never did before, did I? I didn’t explain any of my wounds. Well, Iida, I trust you. Not too long ago, I met another student—met is a bit of an overstatement—and everything about him was…different to me. I couldn’t stop looking at him. I couldn’t stop thinking about him and how he looked and how his voice sounded. I always felt warm around him. I couldn’t get him off my mind. I didn’t understand. I asked Fuyumi about it, and she explained that I might be attracted to other guys. That…I might be gay. Endeavor happened to overhear our conversation, and he was livid. He was beyond furious that—from what he assumed and is correct about—I’m not straight. I’m disgusting. I’m inferior. I’m not normal. I’m wrong. I’m…not a Todoroki._ His breaths become ragged as he tucks his lips back a bit. _Because I’m gay. Because…I think guys are attractive. Because I think differently from his views of normal and what’s right. Because of something I can’t control…he wrung, twisted, and beat my neck. Because of something I can’t “correct,” my voice was revoked. Iida, do you also think I’m disgusting and wrong beca—_

I perfervidly shake my head. “No. Absolutely not…” I lower my brows at the sight of Todoroki’s exanimate eyes beginning to water. “I support you, Todoroki. I support us both. I’m fairly certain that I’m bisexual, but, nonetheless, I would never think you’re disgusting or wrong for your sexuality.” My chest leisurely expands before sharply imploding into an uncomfortably tight, crammed pocket of tumultuous emotion as tears slowly slide down Todoroki’s cheeks.

With stumbling breaths, he signs, _Is it okay if I asked for… I doubt it, actually. But, thank you, Iida. I’ve been terrified to think about leaving. I’m still in the process of learning sign language, so I’m sorry if what I’m saying is hard to decipher. I wanted to try and leave once I was confident in my abilities to use sign language, but it feels as though I’ll receive abasement for how I look, not being able to speak, using sign language, and for being gay—even if my mind is exaggerating this, I feel like one would be able to look at me and see that I’m likely gay._ His trembling lips are further cloaked by shadow as he fully hangs his head.

The Todoroki who was once cold and aloof is now locked away in a sea of what I perceive as fear, shame, and paranoia. The Todoroki that never allowed much emotion to creep past his countenance shudders as tears trickle from his eyes like raindrops.

I gingerly place my hand on his back and gently pat the backs of his shoulders; this gradually evolves into my hand gently massaging across his back. “Our class is far from the type of class that would mock or shame you for being who you are,” I assure him while my fingers flutter across the discs of his spine. “Todoroki? Would you like me to bring you something to eat?”

He shrugs a bit. _I’m not hungry._ His hand motions come to a halt before resuming a moment later. _Ever since my voice was torn from my body, I haven’t had an appetite. Nothing sounds “good.” Everything sounds “bad.” I don’t really think about eating. Not that I can when I’ve isolated myself in my dorm._ Todoroki sighs as his body begins to lean against my shoulder. _Why am I here in my dorm at all? Because…I’m not a Todoroki. I don’t have a place in that family because I’ve contaminated the bloodline. I don’t have a place there from the decision of who I question is truly my father or not. I don’t have a place that would welcome a filthy faggot. I don’t have a place to go that I feel would accept me. I don’t have a place in that family because I was never a part of it to begin with._

 _And…it hurts,_ he continues. _I left, but have I ever gotten a message or a call from anyone? No. No one…until you texted me. The person who was so gung-ho on training me to perfection could cut me from his life and act as though I was never his son because I’m gay. I caused the current top Hero to disown his son because his son is gay. That was all it took. No negotiation. I hate myself for being gay. In general, I hate myself. I’m ashamed that I’m gay. I’m disgusted with myself for being gay. Why…do I have to be gay?_ He blinks, and a stream of translucent diamond spills across his nose as his head fully rests on my shoulder.

Like a sword to the gut, burning clumps of grimy, undulating emotion transfix my body as disbelief gouges through my head. Todoroki never spoke much—no less about himself or how he felt—yet he now seems as though he has far too much to say and not enough time to say it all.

I gently wrap my arm around his slim, shivering frame. “Although you might not be hungry, you still must eat, Todoroki.” _Todoroki…_ “Would you prefer if I called you something other than Todoroki?”

He nods slowly. _If it isn’t too much trouble, I think I’d prefer to be referred to by first name._ His silent tears continue to fall, yet the profounds of emotion that once saturated his eyes have dissipated into a torpid wind of emptiness. _I’ll try to eat. I don’t want to worry you._

My spare hand cautiously brushes away the faded tendrils of vermillion and snow which cling to Todoroki’s cheeks from being dampened by his tears. “Understood, Shoto.” Upon uttering his name, I find my tongue slurring my words ever so slightly. “I accept you, and I’m certain our class will as well. But, Sh-Shoto, I know you’re gay, and that is perfectly okay. You’re allowed to be who you are. You’re allowed to think that other guys are attractive. You’re allowed to be gay, Shoto. I believe you’re perfect as who you are. You are inferior to no one unless you state that yourself.” I pause for a moment as my eyes meet with Todoroki’s eyes for a moment. “Shoto, I-I think you’re quite handsome.”

 _Tenya, now is highly inappropriate!_ I scold myself. _He is most definitely attractive, but there are matters far more important to be discuss—_

My eyelids leap open at the sight of Todoroki’s cheeks being mantled in a faint mist of pink. His expression shifts slightly.

 _I don’t think I agree with you,_ Todoroki signs. _Especially now that I’ve seen you again._ The hue of peach frosting his cheeks deepens. _Iida, can I ask for something selfish?_

I nod while attempting to maintain a collected countenance, but seeing Todoroki visibly blushing is honestly the most adorable thing I’ve seen thus far. “Of course you can.”

Todoroki fidgets with his fingers a bit. _I don’t want to sacrifice our friendship for it. But…I can’t stop thinking about it. I'm curious. I’m a bit desperate to know. I feel as though I might never receive another opportunity to do this. So… Well… Iida, could we… Could we…kiss?_ He flinches the moment he’s signed “kiss,” and I won’t deny that my composure has likely been razed by the warmth rising in my chest from being both flustered and astonished. _Sorry. That’s a lot to ask. I shouldn’t have asked. I…want to know what it feels like. Even if it’s completely platonic, I’m itching to know. But I shouldn’t—_

While Todoroki frantically creates his hand motions, I decide to vanquish his inner turmoil and simply kiss him. Cognizant of his intentions derived from exacerbated curiosity and dubiety, I figure that Todoroki is likely not au fait regarding relationships or proper mannerisms in relationships. Besides, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious as well. So, whether it be by romantic, platonic, or other subliminal motives, this kiss is a harmless experiment.

My heart tap dances with fervor as I tip Todoroki’s head to face me before leaning down and pressing our lips together. Cerise certainly sears my cheeks, but the warm tenderness of our united lips rouses a mellow affability that permeates the air. Yet, I dither as I pull back somewhat hastily—Todoroki’s breaths have stopped, and I’m not certain if this is indicative of satisfaction or discomfort—from the idyllic surface of his lips.

“Was that…okay?” I ask while gulping slowly.

Todoroki nods gently as a long sigh escapes his lips. _I…liked it. I think I liked it beyond what it was. I liked…the fact that_ you _were the one kissing me._ He points his nose to the floor as the peach kissing his cheeks is thrust into a coruscating wildfire. _Iida…would you be mad if I told you that I think I wanted us to kiss because I would be kissing_ you? _I’ve never felt so attached to someone before._

 _I suppose I was the only one to reach out to you when you were absent for so long,_ I think while shaking my head, _so it would make sense for you to find more of a sense of attachment—especially after what happened._

“I could never be mad at that. That is…an honor. But, seeing as we feel similarly, I hope you don’t mind if I kiss you again.”

Curiosity, innocence, friendship, compassion, and reciprocated love weld into the embrace of our lips as they meet again, but this time, I don’t pull away. Todoroki readjusts his posture a bit, and I follow suit. I tilt my head a bit to deepen our soft, slow, ardent kiss, and as I do so, I soon find myself leaning against Todoroki. He falters from resting his head against my shoulder while I cautiously press his back into the bed before we simultaneously release each other.

Todoroki breathlessly stares up at me, and as he moves his hands to speak, his stomach growls beneath me. _You’re not mad that I likely like you beyond as a friend because you simply talked to me? All you did was text me…and yet I already wanted to kiss you, or, well, you to kiss me._ Us. _I wanted_ us _to kiss. But, you’re also incredibly handsome, Iida._ A small, authentic smile caresses his lips, and once my eyes espy its perfect existence, my heart melts like chocolate.

“Shoto, you are—” I flinch and fumble to catch my glasses as they slip down and begin to fall— “adorable. Your smile is like you…and you’re perfect. I’m not mad, though. Shoto, might I remind you that I did initiate this kiss of my own volition? I’m not mad whatsoever. I am very happy, Shoto.” I now sit upright, but Todoroki remains in the same position on the bed. “I’ll deliver some soba to you. After that, I suppose we can discuss this more. All right?” I return a smile to him, and he nods.

Once I return to his dorm with a bowl of soba, a pair of chopsticks, a thin stack of napkins, and a glass of water—all atop a tray—I set the tray on his desk and glimpse over at a sleeping angel of peppermint. Even as he sleeps, the ghost of a smile is still faintly smudged onto his lips. As I stare with great enthrallment at his charming expression, however, I notice a small notebook clutched in his right hand with a yellow note on it that says:

_Dear you, Tenya Iida._

I cautiously extract the notebook from his hand, since I figure he would not have gone through the trouble of writing my name on a note and retrieving the notebook in the first place if he hadn’t intended for me to read it. I turn to the first page.

_I’m alone again. I forgot why I never tried to make any friends. I always leave them, or they always leave me. You aren’t like the rest. I’m lonely. I miss you. I want to see you again, but I’m not allowed to leave the house. Someday…right?_

_It hurts so much that I want to cry, but tears in this household are prohibited. I messed up. It wasn’t Endeavor this time. I want to ask you for help. I want to ask you what I should do. Please tell me. What do I do when I can’t ask for help? When I want to scream in pain every time I move my leg? But it isn’t my leg I’m worried about right now. I didn’t want to cut this deep. It won’t stop bleeding. What do I do? There’s so much blood. You would’ve been able to help. You always knew how to treat my wounds. I guess I can try cauterizing it myself. I didn’t want this…_

_Why am I sad? I have absolutely no reason to be sad. Why am I lonely? It’s been a year since I’ve seen you. Why does it hurt so much to keep living? Sometimes, I wonder if it would be easier to end it all instead of trying anymore._

_Do you remember when you said you’d protect me? Can you protect me from myself? I keep cutting. It’s not as helpful anymore. So I cut more. I cut deeper. I cut and I cut…but the pain beneath my skin I try to cut just won’t die. How many times do you think I’ll have to drive a blade through my skin to feel okay again? To feel as okay as I do when I’m putting the blade to my skin?_

_I’m afraid of texting you. We haven’t texted in about a year. Do you hate me? I’m sure you’re busy. But my mind wants to convince me that you hate me. That I messed it all up. That it’s all my fault. Every time I pull up our previous conversation, I read through hours of our messaging history. I’ve memorized quite a bit of our conversations._

_I’ve realized that I’ve started to notice someone more often than not, and I feel odd when I see him. I always find myself staring at him. He’s very pretty, if you ask me. Good-looking. I wish I could look like him. His voice is soothing. I never tire of hearing it. I want to be around him, but whenever I think about introducing myself, I draw a blank. Why do I feel like this? Why do guys in general look far more appealing to the eye than the girls? I think I’ll ask Fuyumi. I’d ask you, but…_

_I’ve been clean for a month. I started to feel better about myself. But I’m not clean anymore. I hate myself. Endeavor hates me. Endeavor hates who I am. Endeavor is appalled by me. Endeavor has disowned me. He beat me. He told me I’m better off dead. He beat my voice out of me. I don’t have a voice. I don’t have an identity. I don’t have a home. I don’t have a family. Why? Because I like guys. All because I’m fucking gay… Endeavor’s training might have been grueling and perhaps bordering abuse at times, but he knew my limits. I talked to Fuyumi about how I looked at the student I couldn’t take my eyes off of—a guy—and before I knew it, Endeavor was wringing my neck. “Worthless faggot.” “You contaminated the Todoroki bloodline, so from here on, you are_ not _a Todoroki. You don’t belong in my family, my household, my eyes, or even my memories!” “You’re gay, and that means you’re better off dead.” “If you aren’t straight, you’re wrong. You’re disgusting. You’re a disgrace. You should never have been born. You shouldn’t exist.” Why is it wrong? Why is it wrong…not to be interested in girls, but to be interested in guys? Why? Why is it wrong? Why did I have to lose my voice for it? My name? My family? My home? Why? Iida, I’m sorry if I never get to see you again. I want to die. I can’t handle this. I’m falling apart. I’m cutting without a care as to what happens to me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had a friend that was gay, Iida._

_I tried. I tried to hang myself. I tried to die. I tried to end this pain, this useless life of vanity, this fucking nightmare… Someone stopped me. I don’t know who they were. They were just another “someone else” to me. But they wouldn’t let me die. They wouldn’t let me hang myself. They wouldn’t let me kill myself. They wouldn’t let me erase myself. I’m wearing a scarf now. I’m in my dorm at U.A. I’m afraid. I’m terrified. I’m lonely. I’m so fucking lonely. I feel like Endeavor will find me at any moment to break me. School starts in two days. I can’t leave my dorm. They’ll mock me. They’ll judge me. They’ll laugh at me. They’ll tell me I’m a worthless faggot. They’ll hurt me. Don’t I hurt myself enough? Is that not enough? How much more must I punish myself for existing just to try and keep moving every day? Is a suicide attempt not enough? I guess not. If family is all I need, why did I come so close to committing suicide because of my family? Less the entirety and more one singular figure, but…I can still remember the vivid details of what it felt like to have my neck in the noose._

_You texted me. No one else in my family has tried to reach me. No one. Even with a week of absences on my report card, no one has attempted to contact me. I miss you. Iida, I miss you. I know you’re in my class this year, but I can’t leave this dorm. I at least want to be confident enough with using sign language, but I’m still terrified that I’ll simply make a fool out of myself. The thought of interacting with another human being terrifies me. Iida, would you hate me for being gay?_

_I keep lying to you. You ask how I am, and I tell you a lie every time. I want you to believe I’m fine. I don’t want you to know the truth yet. When the time arises and I have to tell you the truth, or you figure it out and directly confront me about it, what do I do? How can I tell you that I can’t alleviate the urge to cut? That I tried to kill myself? How do I tell you about it all? I’ll likely be dead before that happens. I guess you might find this notebook. That’s how you’ll know… Through the notebook that I sometimes convince myself is sentient. I talk to this notebook sometimes, yet I know I’m only talking to myself. Talk? I guess I don’t have a voice, but even so… I just want to believe there’s someone I trust myself to confide in. I trust you, but I can’t bring myself to worry you. So, I pretend as though a notebook is a person. No wonder I was disowned._

_You knocked on my door. Do you think I’m here, or are you checking every possibility to try and find me? I couldn’t open the door. I’m afraid. I’m afraid you’ll think I’m a disgusting, worthless faggot. I don’t want you to leave me. Not again. I wish I could tell you I’m in my dorm. I wish I could've opened the door. Even if I wanted to open the door, I was cutting again. I was clean for a month…but now it’s worse than ever. The entirety of both of my legs are covered in scars. I think my legs_ are _scars. And I realize now that I’ve lost a lot of weight. I’m weak. I’m frail. I’m exhausted. So is my heart—it’s weak, frail, and exhausted. I’m nothing like the person I was before. I try to sleep, but I feel like I hear pounding on my door. And then I hear Endeavor. But no one is ever there. Even when you knocked and I could hear your voice, I wasn’t certain of whether or not someone was actually there. What I would give to feel a palpable person beside me again. To hear a voice that isn’t simply a figment of my imagination again. To see someone I trust again._

_If you’re reading this now, I want to say something. Dear you, Tenya Iida… I love you. When you kissed me, it felt good. It felt right. I know I’m gay, and I think this proves it. I cringe when I think about kissing a girl. Anyway. Iida, I’ve never had someone tell me that I’m supported and accepted before. I’ve never met anyone as kind as you. I’ve never met someone as attractive as you, either. I’ve never met someone that could bring tears to my eyes in a good way. I’ve never met anyone…that’s been able to make me smile. No one causes me to feel the things you make me feel. But after everything I’ve done, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t feel the same way. After all, I did try to hang myself. I cut three times today. I lied to you so many times while we texted because I wanted to seem like I was okay. This morning, I thought about starving to death, and I honestly accepted that as my fate. But I don’t think that that will end up happening. I don’t think you’d allow me to, either. I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open, but thank you. I wish I could tell you how grateful I am for you with my voice. I love you, Tenya. Would you be mad if I called you that?_

At the bottom of the second page of Todoroki’s final note that he wrote while I was in the kitchen is a heart. Yet, I find that the gray heart is almost reminiscent of his own—achromatic, empty, dull around the edges, and partially erased.

 _How can someone who has been hurt as drastically as you have still act as though nothing happened?_ I ponder while glancing over to the person resting in a soft repose that I never would have thought struggles severely with self-harm, self-loathing, suicidal thoughts, and above it all…I never would have thought that the same person who was smiling and blushing had previously put his own head through a noose in an attempt to erase himself from the world. _Shoto…_

Yet, thinking about it now, there was something that Todoroki said to me while we were in middle school that I’m certain I failed to properly fathom once he uttered it to me.

**“I didn’t think this would end up being a stain. I try to wash it off, but I haven’t been able to stay clean.”**

Every now and again, Todoroki brought up something about being dirty—presumably—but being unable to stay clean. I previously thought nothing of it and simply arrived at the conclusion that he had been referring to the literal stains which might have soiled his clothing, and as such, I figured he was disappointed that Endeavor might have seen anything less than spotless as soiled. Now, however, I understand.

My jaw clenches like the lachrymal vice clamping down on my chest as I imagine the person who was always good, fine, all right, etcetera, over text as the person with a fragile body racked with self-inflicted scars and wounds, a cloudy mind of self-destruction, and a poignant voice of swaying gestures from being beaten for simply being a diverse individual who sleeps before me. Who knew that such an innocent smile could hide such a horrific past?

“I wouldn’t mind that at all, Shoto…” I whisper. “I love you. I love you, Shoto. Thank you for telling me the truth. Thank you for opening your door. Thank you…for not giving in yet. Even if you’re gay, unable to speak, damaged…I love you. I accept you for who you are. I _will_ protect you.” I gently kiss his forehead, and if I’m not mistaken, his soft grin further twitches into visibility.

 _After having seen your smile, I don’t_ want _to believe that any of this is the truth, but I_ know _it is the unalterable truth. I never knew my own friend wanted so badly to disappear from here while I continued through my daily life…happy and content. I wish I had put in more of an effort to text you before I first did this year… Could I have erased the scenario we are now in in which you still wish to self-destruct? Could I have significantly reduced the number of scars you’ve carved onto your own flesh? Could I have prevented you from attempting to hang yourself, Shoto? If I had texted you…_


	9. 1 |「Battle」Levi (SNK) x Todoroki

𝔦: 𝟏 𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐦

 **Warnings (potentially apply to all chapters of this one-shot):  
** Suicide attempt(s), suicidal thoughts/actions, self-harm, self-hatred, implied/referenced abuse, Levi being empathetic but still an ass.

[𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧]  
𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐨 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐢

With a heart sundered by silver, bloodied blades, Todoroki winces as he writes with a quivering hand his signature at the bottom of his suicide note. The past four months of his life have been dedicated to investing efforts into asphyxiating his debilitating urges to die and capitulate to self-destruction, but now, more than anything, Todoroki desires to instead be the one to asphyxiate himself.

With each excruciating breath he takes is another shot—another cold, soundless bullet—being fired into his chest. Inhale. Why am I alive? he’d wonder. Exhale. To be someone I don’t want to be; break down in a self-inflicted storm of self-loathing and tears; to wait and discover a reason to live—yet I always arrive at the same conclusion that what I live for will all be erased in due time; to keep on walking without feeling as though I’m walking from the numbness to the painful propensities I’ve cycled through just to keep myself on my feet; to espy an answer…and fall back again to the beginning of this hell, he answers.

Inhale, exhale… It would be so simple to stop breathing and cut the interminable circle of a kind of agony that intoxicates and befouls the mind with venom and savages the heart with the command to cease all functionality. Inhale, exhale… It would be so easy to breathe the tears composed not of liquid which fill his lungs. Inhale, exhale... It would be so brutally painless to be deprived of oxygen to have a flood of agonizing relief rush back…for the purpose of being drowned and revived—of fainting into numb stupor and being awakened into unbearable, lively torment—without end. Exhale, inhale… Can breathing simply to stop breathing without a purpose be considered living? Todoroki doesn’t know, but he still continues to breathe. Exhale, inhale…

With frigid fingers, Todoroki slowly folds up his suicide note and jams it into his back pocket. He glances around his dorm and mentally offers his farewells to the place which allowed him a reprieve from Endeavor. Sighing, he retrieves his phone from its charger and begins to text his mother as he flicks out the lights illuminating his dorm.

I'm sorry, Todoroki thinks to himself with a crestfallen expression forming across his lips and tugging at his brows. I'm so sorry, Mom. It isn't that I want to do this to you or burden you with anything, but I can't do this anymore. I told you...I would get better. I did. I truly did get better. You looked so happy. I'm taking that happiness away. I'm sorry... You helped me survive each day. Knowing you were there for me and always supporting me...gave me hope. I'm so sorry, Mom, but I'm not as strong as you think I am. I'm not strong at all. I'm weak. I'm selfish. I'm pitiable, honestly. Tears won't solve anything—they only make my face red and my flesh and clothes wet—so why has crying been the only thing I've been able to do?

"Oi," abruptly tumbles into Todoroki's ears as the elevator on the fifth floor of the dormitory rolls open. "The hell are you doing?" Bakugou squints his brows at the taller male as Todoroki's dull eyes lift from his phone.

Despite the rapid bangs of his heart flooding through his chest and growling in Todoroki's temples, he manages to retain a blank, neutral facade. "Talking to my brother," he replies somewhat dismissively; austere solemnity seeps into his words. "So..."

The ash-blonde leans his elbow against the face of the now-closing elevator doors of steel. "You gotta go to a whole 'nother floor for that?" His garnet eyes tinged with a soft gold lock with a pair of heterochromatic eyes.

"Why are you here?" Todoroki sighs.

My hands won't stop shaking, Todoroki cogitates as Bakugou expels a brief snort. I'm genuinely anxious. My hands are cold. My head is burning. My thoughts are slow. My heart is beating rapidly. I feel sick--like my guts have been mashed together. Shit.

"Tables..." Bakugou furrows his brows at his own remark. "The fuck? Tape elbows," he clarifies. "Tch. Fine, though. I won't question it." He crosses his robust arms.

I wonder... Todoroki catches himself thinking as his lips part to speak. "Actually, can I..." He cuts his words apart before he can ask if he can talk to Bakugou; a part of him that he wishes he could simply erase beseeches that he discovers what else the world might have to hold for him before permanently erasing himself. "Ignore that. Sorry." He shakes his head and eyes the elevator.

"Whatever. Be on your merry way, then." Bakugou’s arms unravel as he lifts his back from the elevator doors and begins to walk off.

I know I need help, the heterochromatic student thinks while languidly stepping into the elevator, but I don't want to be helped. A part of me wants to be okay again, but the rest of me reminds me that someone worthless doesn't deserve to be happy. I want to die, don't I? Endeavor told me, "If all you are is worthless—which you've proven to be—then you don't belong here. Stop playing the victim and start taking responsibility for your actions. Mistakes should be erased, and _you,_ Shoto... _You_ are the worst mistake, and I regret raising this mistake. What do I get in return for raising something that's better off dead? Misery. You should be thanking me for all I've done for you." If the person who demanded that I be created can't love me and wants me to die…

No matter how many times I cut, he continues to think, I can’t scathe the pain in my chest. No, I just scar my skin. I’m not accomplishing anything by cutting every single fucking day. Not a single thing…but I keep cutting. Does it feel good? If I’m honest, it doesn’t feel as good as you’d think, so why is it so addicting? Right. My body is just my armor, and my armor looks best when beaten and broken. Another scratch—another cut, another gash—is just another scratch. One day, it’s all going to fall apart, but I guess I’m accelerating the process. This is what beauty looks like, huh? What a wonderfully shitty world this is.

Fished from his swarm of baleful thoughts by the ding of the elevator, Todoroki watches as the metallic doors of chrome split apart and glide in opposite directions to allow his ingress to the rooftop. He bites his lip as the benign breeze kisses his flesh and combs through his hair. Inhaling a long, sharp breath of the cool air threading itself through the flashing inkiness of the night, he sits at the edge of the roof as a subtle flicker of movement in the distance grasps his attention. Squinting in the direction of the anomalous activity, he scours the neighboring buildings for the cause of whatever might have caught his eye. Figuring his sleep-deprived self to simply be guiding his mind towards insanity, Todoroki returns his gaze to his lap and sighs to himself.

I thought that parents were supposed to love their children through thick and thin, Todoroki ponders. But I can't blame Endeavor for hating someone who never deserved to be alive. So many people die... So many people risk their lives to save others... Me? I've been told to die. I want to die. I'm about to die. Why do I deserve to be alive when I want to rip apart the life that others would fight to receive? Just to live...people do such reckless things. Just to die...people do such foolish things. But is this foolish if my perpetual disappearance is beneficial? Todoroki slips his hand into the pocket of his sweatshirt and curls his fingers around the pocket knife resting inside. I can't give my life to the dead or those who are dying. Live... Die... I want to die. I'm ready to die. Why am I hesitating? Jump. The ground is so far... Jump. Will it hurt? _Jump._ What if I survive? _Jump,_ you damn coward. Jump. Just jump.

Strung up by his thoughts like a languished insect writhing in the fell strands of silk woven by a spider, Todoroki is unable to hear the vague taps which grow closer to him. He stiffens his posture and pulls out his pocket knife, and as the whetted blade steeped in shadow emerges from its sheath, the boy with two-toned hair glimpses at his blurred reflection from the blade. Silver waves twitch from the lake of shadow and light dancing across the surface of the blade, and Todoroki realizes a moment too late that he himself had not caused the specific bend and ripple in the waves he had been staring at.

_Click!_

A rush of silver pries open Todoroki's hand as his pocket knife sails in an arc across the roof—it doesn't plummet down to the street from over the edge of the rooftop. His eyelids jerk upwards as a hand fastens itself to his shoulder.

"What are you doing?" queries a relatively deep voice that sounds almost as if it mocks anyone for merely existing. From the owner of such an arresting voice is another hand that falls on Todoroki's free shoulder.

Shit, Todoroki thinks as he tilts his head to see a figure with a short stature that exudes a menacing aura. Who is this? I don't remember seeing him at U.A. before. Why is he... Is this an assassin? Am I really... He couldn’t be. If he was, why would I not be dead right—

"Well?" aridly sighs the astringent man with dual blades resting at his sides. Despite the demanding bite of his monotonous voice, the man with naturally dark hair and dark eyes stays his hands on Todoroki's shoulders.

Todoroki shakes his head as his breaths hasten, and in an attempt to unfetter himself from the iron grip of the man standing behind him, Todoroki jerks his body to the side while promptly bending his legs to shoot up to his feet. Toppling back from the unanticipated force and weight resisting his movements, Todoroki can hardly fathom the flashes of limbs prancing through the air before he's forced into a prone position on the rooftop. With wrists secured behind his back and what he assumes to be a foot pressing down against the lower column of his spine, the heterochromatic male grunts in dismay.

"You don't need your arms, do you?" threatens the shorter of the two with a vaguely vexed growl rolling through his voice. “If you don’t mind, I’ll cut them off.”

What the hell is going on? Todoroki asks himself as he continues to mindlessly squirm beneath the hold of what is seemingly his assailant. I never asked for any of this. Is it so much to ask to die? Can't I...have that much? Can't I do what's right? Or...is he planning on torturing me to death? What is his goal? I can't read him in the slightest.

"I'd prefer to have my arms," Todoroki at last mutters as he begins to sink away into vacillation. "What...do you want with me? Why— _ngh!_ —are you..." He winces at the familiar sensation of his ribs being ruthlessly kicked; a dull thud and a sharp twinge of pain ring through his chest.

**“You should be thankful that trash isn’t able to smell its own stench like everything else can,” Endeavor spat at his son after hammering his foot into the ribcage of the incapacitated boy.**

The phlegmatic man with charcoal hair—who Todoroki soon discovers to be Levi Ackerman—lowers his brows ever so slightly. "I saw some shit on the roof that needed to be cleaned up. That's all." His grip on Todoroki's wrists tightens. "Why are you here at such an ugly hour?"

"How does this concern you?" Todoroki retorts cantankerously.

Before I have the chance to fuck anything else up, I want to die, he inwardly snarls. Lives…weren’t designed for the worthless. I hate being used, stepped on, and thrown away, but I’d bite my tongue if I tried to retaliate.

Levi offers Todoroki a side glare. "It doesn't," he says with the slight tilt of his head. "That's why it's my priority to make it my concern." Despite the implications of his statement, Levi simply blinks; his gelid countenance coupled with his intensely remote eyes cloaked by the night is far from reassuring.

I don't understand... the younger of the two cerebrates while his deleterious thoughts necessitate the urge to immediately flee from the man restraining him. You're saving me? You're hurting me? You're degrading me? You're being kind to me? I wouldn't have to think about any of this...if I had just jumped. I can't help but hate myself. I hate myself. I fucking hate myself...but I’m still numb to that kind of pain.

"Why should I believe that?" Todoroki murmurs with malice polishing his words while he lowers his head back to the cool, rough roof. "No. Forget I asked. What's your stipulation for releasing me?" His cheek rests against the diminutive grooves chipped into the surface of the rooftop.

"Don't leave the rooftop here," Levi states with the subtle raise of his chin. "Unless you're that desperate to lose a limb or two..."

"I'd first set you on fire," Todoroki counters with vitriol, but upon realizing the magnitude of what he'd be obligating himself to, he shudders.

Why did I say that? Todoroki inwardly chastises himself. Empty threats. To think I used to be able to work under pressure as if no pressure existed at all… Dammit, I didn’t mean to retaliate. I suppose that’s just a defense mechanism. If I had jumped…

"I see." The raven-haired male begins to bend Todoroki's arm at an unnatural angle that causes the student to release a throaty growl. "Set me on fire, then. If you don't want to lose your arm, set me on fire." His unwavering gaze remains fixed on Todoroki's twitching mien.

Todoroki grits his teeth as his arm creaks, yipping for mercy. "Enough... What do you want me for?" He scrunches his eyes closed and curls his hands into hot, sweaty fists.

"I don't know." Levi sharply twists Todoroki's arm, earning a muffled groan of pain in response. "If you've had enough, fight me back." His stormy eyes narrow as a transparent spark soars through them. "I might as well dismantle you."

I'm not dying like that, Todoroki vehemently proclaims to himself. Dammit. I want to die so damn much, but I'm still terrified of the pain. Even if it’s what I deserve, I can’t change the fact that I can feel pain. Cutting gives me a bit of emotional respite, but I’m always filled with apprehension whenever I’m about to bring the blade to my skin. I can't make up my mind about anything. Use your fire. Don't let him use you. Not again. Never again. This power belongs to you. Use your fire!

A vivid vortex of vermillion veils the inky pools of shadow swimming through the night with sprawling jaws of flame. Saffron scythes split through the blending barrage of tangerine and ruby. Such a spectacle, however, is swiftly extinguished as Levi releases Todoroki and steps back from the dual Quirk-user.

"Shit," Todoroki sibilates in self-reproach. He lifts himself to his knees and looks up at the onyx-haired man. "Sorry..." he sighs with a scowl ghosting his lips.

Levi brushes his hands together and closes his eyes for a moment. "No, I'll admit to being an ass. You singed my face, and that's about all." His eyes devoid of light espy the ground before meeting Todoroki's guilt-stricken eyes of silver and turquoise. "Is your arm all right?"

The student with two-toned hair nods slowly. "It's fine..." With a doleful frown, he glances at the pocket knife in the nearby distance and bites his lower lip. "So, why did you come here? Yes, to clean the shit on the roof, but..."

"Who or what else but yourself were you going to cut with the pocket knife?” he states with unvarnished words. “I suspect you were going to jump." He notes how the tall, young student that's seemingly been divided into two halves stares at the ground from the pointed query. "My identity isn't known to many, but I'm sure you'll recognize my name: Levi. I patrol U.A. at night from these tall-ass buildings."

The eminent Captain Levi... Todoroki thinks while giving a saturnine nod of his head. U.A.'s Strongest Guard¹. He seldom makes an appearance unless it's of paramount importance. I guess he's shorter than I would have imagined. Although short, I know he could have easily snapped my arm like a twig. Regardless... He wants to help me?

Todoroki nods as his eyes drift back to Levi—he can't help but notice how his eyes are magnetized to the abstruse, young-looking man. "Oh. Yes, I've heard of you." He splays his sticky fingers as his eyes shift back to the ground. "I appreciate the concern, but it's futile. I can always try again in a different way on a different day. So, let me die here. It's...what I want. I want...to die. Ah. Sorry." His head dips down as Levi approaches him, and once the sound of movement fades, Todoroki is met with a hand intertwining with his. "Ah? Ah!"

A crushing grip strikes Todoroki’s mind like a bolt of lightning as his body contorts. Benumbed are his senses as fear and astonishment gouge through them, yet his pupils rapidly dart around in the frantic entropy of his boiling mind. The world is rapidly rotated in his eyes as his body is lifted and thrown over the edge of the rooftop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _____________  
> ¹ 𝐔.𝐀.'𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐝: 𝖣𝖾𝗋𝗂𝗏𝖾𝖽 𝖿𝗋𝗈𝗆 "𝖧𝗎𝗆𝖺𝗇𝗂𝗍𝗒'𝗌 𝖲𝗍𝗋𝗈𝗇𝗀𝖾𝗌𝗍 𝖲𝗈𝗅𝖽𝗂𝖾𝗋" 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖺𝖽𝗃𝗎𝗌𝗍𝖾𝖽 𝗍𝗈 𝖿𝗂𝗍 𝗂𝗇 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗐𝗈𝗋𝗅𝖽 𝗈𝖿 𝖡𝖭𝖧𝖠.


	10. 2 |「Battle」

[𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧]  
𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐨 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐢

Shit! Todoroki internally gasps as the air whistles through his clothing. Help... Help? Isn't this exactly what—

As Todoroki's dangling body smacks the side of the building from being held up by Levi clasping onto Todoroki's hand, the heterochromatic male opens his eyes and stares down at the coruscating abyss below. Hazy webs of gold and onyx slosh around from within the menacing maw of the beast wholly encompassing his vision. He swallows thickly at the sight of his impending demise merely the slip of a hand away.

"Let... L-Let go," supplicates a quivering Todoroki, but Levi stays his grip fast. "I'm not wanted or needed here. Let me go..." Levi's grip on his hand loosens, and Todoroki chokes down the bile leaping up into his throat alongside his heart. "I know I must sound desperate, and I'm sorry to be asking this, but I—"

A rippling gale of frigid wind envelops Todoroki's body as he plummets through the air towards his own fatality below.

If I could rewind the clock, would I do it to earn myself a few minutes to walk across the world again? Todoroki asks himself as the ground approaches his sky-cloaked form. Would I...have been stronger? Could I have overcome this all? Could I have been someone worthy of being called a Hero? You only live once. I'll never know what I could have done differently to change my fate. But, I don’t have to exist. I can finally die. Yet, what if I live? No. Don’t think about that. Could I...have found a reason to li—

Oblivious to the mechanical whirs and the shadow encroaching on the pre-existing shadows formed by the buildings, Todoroki finds himself with eyes beginning to swell with tears as Levi scoops him up from behind. A flicker of movement clashes with the side of the dormitory building, and with a whirling bolt of air rushing past the two as they swing back into ascension, Todoroki clings to Levi with a tenacious grip, torpefied comprehension, and a thunderous heart.

I feel so numb, Todoroki cogitates. I feel drained. Yet, I also feel as though every emotion I've ever known is currently feasting upon my mind. I feel so awake. It's all a blur. I'm terrified. I'm calm. I can't comprehend what's currently transpiring. I understand what happened. I suppose it makes sense that nothing makes sense anymore. Ah. I was never meant to understand.

As Levi lands back upon the safety of the rooftop, he gently sets the student in his arms down. "Sorry, but that was necessary," Levi remarks insouciantly with candid, pointed words. "If you were desperate to die, you would have fought back. You proved that you can if you're desperate. I gave you plenty of time to think and comprehend." He flicks his gaze to the rapidly heaving chest of the dual Quirk-wielder. "Hey. That was a shitty thing for me to do. I won't be an asshole and do something like that again. Maybe."

Todoroki curls an arm across his stomach from the horrifically exhilarating plummet that he assumed to be to his death. "I d-didn't want...to hurt you," he huffs while his own terror and askew equilibrium raze his vertigo. "I hate living like this. I hate  _ feeling _ like this, watching as everything I work towards is decimated, fearing a painful death, how much I hate, and above all else..." His maundering diminishes into silence.

"Huh?" sighs the shorter of the two in what could easily be interpreted as a sardonic undertone.

"Nothing."

"I see. Hatred strengthens weaknesses in brutal ways." Levi kneels down in front of Todoroki and peers into the petrified lakes of a bluish-green and a dirty silver before him.

With a nod, Todoroki inwardly lambastes his propensity for self-loathing whenever such an opportunity arises. "I'm weak for being full of hatred." The unlit flames of ardor in his eyes seem only to insidiously dampen. "I know. I'm sorry you have to hear this at all."

"Hatred only makes you as weak as you let it." His eyes now trace down to the hands of the U.A. student; the damaged digits jitter violently. "Is it your goal to be weak? I didn't think so." He pauses for a moment. "Someone desperate to live might beat the shit out of you."

"So...this is my fault," Todoroki murmurs as self-culpability lances through his head. "I did this to myself. I can't blame anyone else for—"

"All your fault?" Levi slovenly interjects. "No. You were influenced. Don't be stupid. Who and what you're with and grew up with influences everything you do." As if bored by the conversation, his eyes roll to his calloused hands, and with either hand, he coils his fingers around the air to grip something invisible—something perhaps visible only to his memories.

Todoroki shakes his head. "I could've—"

"You can't predict the future," quips U.A.'s Strongest Guard. "Any choice is a gamble—nothing is guaranteed. You don't get a result until after the choice is made. Make your choice. How it's made is your decision. Even if it's the wrong choice, don't regret making the choice. Regardless of what you do, it's all influenced...including what I've just told you. Don't forget it." His fingers unfurl from being wrapped around the ever-moving wind.

I can't predict the future, Todoroki thinks, but I can make a better future. A future without me. Even so...

"No one would genuinely care if I disappeared. All wounds fade with time, don't they?" Todoroki's eyes become enthralled by the scar cutting across the palm of his right hand.

You seemed so proud when my Quirk manifested, Todoroki continues to inwardly expatiate to himself. I was proud, too. I was gifted with two Quirks in one. Fire and ice. Despite this serendipitous, forced gift, my hatred towards you continued to grow. I hated my unbearable, unsightly left half that pained Mom to look at. That aggregation of hatred made this scar. I was furious, and I ended up being unable to control my ice. It felt good when the ice daggers ripped through my flesh. Yet, ever since the Sports Festival match with Midoriya, I've instead learned to replace my hatred towards you with hatred towards myself. When Mom left this burn mark on my face, I knew I hated my existence. But, it's true that I can't predict the future. I never would have predicted then that I'd attempt this…more than once.

While silence flitters through the breeze, Levi abruptly shatters its tranquil form. "Those who don't know you still feel the impact. The death of a U.A. student would dent morale and reputation."

"Even if selfish...if I threw away the emotions that revile me on the daily, I wouldn't have to feel. It would be much easier to fight. With nothing to reprimand my actions..." His eyelids ensconce his eyes and mantle his vision with black.

"You'd be left with nothing worth fighting for but yourself. I've lost many people that I trust to villains, but that only supplements my drive to fight." Seeming to reminisce over the past, Levi narrows his eyes. "I'll forever bear the burden of their deaths, but I'll carry their wills on. Their deaths won't reflect vanity...as long as someone remembers and will fight for what they fought for." He pauses to scrutinize Todoroki's twitching expression obscured by the shadows draping across his face. "Just what are  _ you _ fighting for?"

The student with heterochromia subtly shrugs his shoulders. "I...don't know. I don't know anymore." He points his nose to the ground and begins to contemplate his preponderance of possible answers.

Levi nods. "Understandable. Well, emotions aren't necessary...but they exist. They exist—" he points to Todoroki with a blank mien— "in you. Whether you keep them or beat the shit out of them is up to you. Regardless of what you choose, there are drawbacks."

Todoroki grimaces at the thought of being able to dismiss the death of someone as significant to him as his mother or siblings without batting an eye. "I guess...I don't want to be unaffected by something like that," he admits in an achromatic growl.

"So, then...you don't want to throw your emotions away?"

Although in a dither, Todoroki nods nonetheless. "I don't..." A feathery film of an oozing, light weight collects in his eyes.

"Nothing lasts forever. Those emotions will bite the dust when you die."

Todoroki blinks back the tears burning his eyes and mantling the world with a drunken, murky film. "Are you implying that I should feel while I still can? All that I can feel hurts like hell. Sorry. I-I shouldn't have spoken." As his hand kisses the grainy ground, an innocuous fist hammers down against his knuckles with moderate intensity.

The raven-haired male raises his brows a bit. "You're dumber than I thought," he remarks, but rather than his expression bordering a scowl, it instead remains as a neutral, blank frown.

"It doesn't matter when I don't plan on changing my mind about this," Todoroki admits, and as he shuffles to stand up, the fist pressing into his knuckles sprawls out its fingers to restrain him. "You're not saving anyone important. Dammit, just...let me go." His eyes flutter open and closed as his arms tense. "I can't mean anything to you when we're just strangers." With pitiable attempts at struggling against Captain Levi himself, Todoroki simply closes his watering eyes.

"Give up struggling. You're not dying tonight." Like slick, frozen daggers with serrated edges, Levi's nonchalant voice soughs unhurriedly through a forest of crimson and gray tendrils of hair.

He's uncomfortably close, Todoroki silently realizes. Even though he's the reason why I'm still alive,  _ why _ is he so persistent? I haven't evinced any emotion from him. I remember when I was blasé about almost everything. If anything, it was  _ hard _ to feel anything. I felt numb and empty. It felt like I wasn’t a part of this world. I created a wall of iron grandeur for myself, but it never dawned on me that it was beginning to crumble. Now...

With a rueful, ragged smile tugging at his lips, Todoroki spits, "This...is my battle. It's mine alone, and I don't need your help. Leave me be..." His fragile, feigned smile swiftly deteriorates into a quivering, desolate frown.

"A battle is a battle."

Todoroki's eyelids gently split apart as the hand threatening to crush his loosens its grip. "Yes?" Incertitude plagues his mind—is he missing something?

Levi brings his free hand from his side and moves it towards Todoroki's line of sight. "Do you mind if I read this?" The suicide note Todoroki wrote and folded up emerges as a thin rectangle of gray from Levi's fingertips.

It must have fallen out when I was falling, Todoroki internally sighs. "It was meant to be read, although I guess I'm not dead." Not that dying is a prerequisite to reading someone's suicide note, he continues to think.

_ To whoever it may concern, _

_ I'm sorry you have to read this. Where do I start? Well, the weapon that Enji Todoroki—better known as the Flame Hero Endeavor—built to bring down his foes is falling apart. What weapon did he build? A mistake. Someone that just wants to die and rip itself apart. Someone that was entitled to power but ultimately fell short and failed in the eyes of his creator. Something the world doesn't need anymore and never needed at all. Me. His youngest son out of four total children. Oh, maybe you've heard of me before. The person that wouldn't use his left half in the Sports Festival? Red and white hair? Fire and ice as a Quirk? That would be me. I’m doing perfectly fine, right? Well, I'm "perfect," aren't I? I have everything anyone could have dreamed of, yes? No. I never wanted any of what I was born with, but I never had a say in what happened. Am I grateful? Yes. I'm very grateful for everything and everyone I have and know. Why am I writing this note, then? I'm sad, but it's a type of sadness that refuses to dissipate. I'm tired, but it's a type of tiredness that shackles my body and mind to an endless parade of being awake. I'm hurting, but it's a type of hurt that tore apart my mind on the inside the most. For the past few months, I put everything I had into sorting myself out. I started to ease myself off of digging blades into my skin and berating myself over every minor mistake. The longest streak I had of being clean from self-harm was three days. It felt good to make improvements for myself. I could feel the faint difference I was making. But...all it took to break me was just one sentence. Of course, more was said before and after, but just that sentence was enough to make me feel like I absolutely  _ had _ to die.  _ "You _ are the worst mistake, and I regret raising this mistake." I can't say what it is about this sentence that hurts so much, but it hurts to the point where I can't convince myself that living is the better option. No matter how many lies I tell myself, I’ll never spin straw into gold. If someone can regret making their own "masterpiece" so much, then I'd prefer to die than conjure up more regrets for us all. It's just like  _ basic _ math. There are so many ways to look at and solve the problem, but there's only one right answer. If you make a mistake, you erase it and try again. But... Endeavor, is this the answer you've been looking for? Are you happy? Are you relieved? Are you proud? You wanted this for years. You reminded me more than once every single day that I would be better off dead. You forced me to cough up the truth that I never wanted to say—I’m the only one to blame, and I deserve to die. Now, has it all paid off? I took your advice and took my life. I'd say I'm saddened by the fact that you would be happy that your son committed suicide, but for once, I agree with you. I'm happy that he's gone. I hated him. I also wished he would cut his cowardice and die. Above all else, he was what I hated the most. Are you happy? The mistake you were proud to announce had the combination of Quirks that you worked to obtain through four children and a Quirk marriage has had enough. I'm sorry for fucking being alive. You’re right: I’m the only one to blame, and I deserve to die. To anyone who had an encounter with me, I'm sorry. Are  _ you _ happy? _

_ Sincerely, no one important _

While Levi's stormy eyes glide from left to right as he reads the student's suicide note, he sighs, "A physical battle with someone is a battle. A mental battle with someone is a battle. A battle against your own mind is a battle." The eyes of stone which scan the paper in his hands descry Todoroki's anguished countenance. "Is one more important? A battle is a battle. Accept me as an ally in your battle. That's an order." Now reaching the end of the note, his brows unconsciously droop ever so slightly; an empathetic frown flattens yet curves the peripheries of his lips.

Todoroki fervently shakes his head. "I...can't. I'm not having the rug pulled beneath my feet again. I would never be able to stitch myself back together. It's happened one too many times for me to take. I'm sorry to be a disappointment." He bites his lip, chagrined by his own proclamation.

I want to fucking cry... Todoroki rebukes himself. Why? I don't know. I don't understand. No matter what I do to try and make sense of it all, I always arrive at the same answer: I don’t know.  _ Why _ am I constantly dreaming about dying and thinking about my reasons for it? Because I deserve to die for letting my family down in the despicable ways that I’ve managed? I don’t know… I just don’t know. Ever since my phase of feeling numb to everything began to fade, I haven’t been sure of anything. If anything, I prefer that phase to now. I never broke down in tears for absolutely no reason. Before, even if I wanted to, I could never cry. Now… 

Todoroki closes his eyes as he thinks, Tears are worthless. Of course something worthless spills something worthless. Worthless tears, words, actions... I might as well drown myself in the salty tears I shed, the irony blood I bleed, and the stale air I breathe. After hearing that sentence...it was as though a void pried its way through my chest. No matter what I do to fill it up, it's always an empty void eating away at me from the inside. Like...the feelings I knew are being drained away, and new feelings are replacing them. Those feelings are parasites. I don't want them. I can't get rid of them. I choose to try and ignore them. They're killing me, but there's nothing I can do to close this perpetuated wound savaging my chest. What am I thinking? No one can see what doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. It must not exist...because no one else can see it. I must be delusional. Surely...

"Every choice you make is a sacrifice," declares the shorter of the two. "Get used to that. The world won't wait for you. When you're left behind, you take a piece of the people who were close to you in your descent; enough exposure hollows out even the strongest." His expression sours ever so slightly. "It doesn't matter if the wound you leave is a shitty pinprick... Wounds fester, and it's hell when they do." His hand now rests atop Todoroki's hand so that their fingers are aligned. "And don't be an ass to your emotions. You might as well let them run."

I'm inclined to believe that you  _ do _ care, Todoroki ponders. Therefore, if I made a sacrifice with my choice to die here—I don't want to keep up with a world so cruel—I would take a part of you down with me? Even the smallest wounds can fester. Oh. Guilt? Regret? Brooding? Not wanting to succumb to the pain... Tougher skin... A warm heart of ice. I understand, but...

As Todoroki bites back his tears, he hoarsely replies, "I'm just one goddamn person... Why do you care? You hardly know me." His dour lilt bobs intermittently.

Levi glances down at his hand which ensconces the hand of the heterochromatic student. "I walked a similar path." His eyes lift towards the midnight canvas above adorned with stars of gleaming, varying hues. "Doubt. Doubt and regret led to my downfall. Hey, tall-ass kid...what's your name?"

[𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧]  
𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐢 𝐀𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧

The sight was no anomaly to Levi. At some wretched hour of the night, a student from U.A. stepped onto one of the rooftops. Leisurely drawing closer to the edge, so too would Levi slink closer to his target. The Captain would wait, observe, and assess the situation prior to impetuously making any brazen moves. Then—oh, the familiarity—on that fateful night, was the sight of a blade roused. Stalking silently towards his two-toned target, he soon flicked away the weapon that the student clutched with shaking hands.

Then, as he read over the suicide note he had miraculously retrieved from fluttering through the air after dropping—ah,  _ Todoroki _ must have been the student's last name—Todoroki from the roof, Levi began to recollect his memories of enrolling in U.A.

Born Quirkless from what was seemingly a forced accident between his mother and asshole of a father—whoever the damn man was—Levi initially planned to earn liberty for himself and his comrades through U.A.'s Hero course. As obligated traitors to U.A. from the result of their aggregation of crimes while roaming the streets, Levi and his group were assigned to extract experimentation information from the principal of U.A. However, because Levi and his comrades were Quirkless, he decided to present the lie for himself of being unable to disclose the details of his Quirk by his late mother's request; the renowned yet recondite Ackerman name held a dark history imbued by mystery.

Originally, the Ackerman name was crafted through the work of Quirk experimentation and Quirk marriages. Loyal to the Heroes and Pro Heroes as vessels of protection, those with the Ackerman name were allied closely with their creators. Eventually, insubordination by the Ackermans led to their anathematized name, and due to this, the Ackermans typically pretended to be Quirkless, or they concealed the details of their Quirks.

For quite a while, Levi never did understand why his lie granted him access to U.A. He was never questioned, and no tests were run to prove that he  _ did _ possess a Quirk. Levi was dubious of the connotations of his seemingly flawless machination, but he nonetheless remained steadfast regarding his decision to enroll in U.A.'s Hero course. With nothing but a knife—his preferred choice of weapon—he managed to complete the entirety of his course at U.A. However, his decision ultimately put to rest the comrades he fought alongside; he could vividly recall watching as the lives of his friends were crushed.

During his time as a U.A. student, however, it was only to be expected that rumors would surface about him truly being Quirkless. For three years, Levi dismissed the rising notion that he was Quirkless, but by the time his graduation was swiftly approaching, he confronted the principal of U.A.—the previous commander of the Survey Corps known as Erwin Smith—and inquired as to why he was accepted into U.A. at all. After all, Levi was fairly certain that the principal was cognizant of his Quirklessness. Levi was informed that he was one of the few who had the potential of successfully completing the Hero course without a Quirk, and that was precisely what he had done. Every few years, U.A. accepted a set of Quirkless candidates into their Hero course, and although these candidates seldom passed, success wasn't impossible. Well, was that really the unvarnished truth?

Levi questioned why Erwin would conduct such a perilous, filthy experiment on those without Quirks if the outcome had exceedingly low success rates. Not long after the two spoke, Erwin explained the feasibility of Levi and his comrades being U.A.'s traitors. Although utterly livid to such an extent that perhaps crossed the border of insanity from the fact that his friends perished in a futile attempt at achieving their dreams—an attempt that Levi put his trust in—Levi nonetheless began to recognize that Erwin had engaged himself in a wager to free humanity of the villains which applauded humanity's decimation.

Once Levi had officially graduated from U.A. and was seemingly destined to become a Hero, he instead resigned and proclaimed that he was Quirkless. Disregarding the questions and accusations launched at him for his brusque spiel, he joined the Survey Corps—which had a prestigious institution in America that was designed for those without a Quirk—to fulfill the wish he shared with his fallen friends. Fueled by his late friends' desires to free themselves from the repugnant confines of Japan and take a fresh breath of air into a new life in America, Levi expeditiously gained his title of Captain. Once his title had been secured, he returned to U.A. in Japan to become U.A.'s Strongest Guard.

_ Why _ did he return?


	11. 3 |「Battle」

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am an idiot lol. i thought i published this with the second part of this one-shot, but apparently not. sorry about the massive delay...

[𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧]  
𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐢 𝐀𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧

Are you going to tell me your real name, Levi ponders while asking Todoroki what his name is, or are you going to say that you're "no one important" from what you signed on the note?

Todoroki flinches at the question. "It doesn't—"

It doesn't matter? Levi mentally predicts as his digits which sandwich Todoroki's hand with the ground naturally begin to sink between the small gaps between the student's fingers. "Your tongue really is filthy," Levi jeers harmlessly. "What? It doesn't matter? It matters to more than you'd think." He gently cants his head to the side. "And...call me Levi. Just Levi," he clarifies, despite having previously introduced himself—the embellishment of his name from the title of Captain seems to simply be a further detriment to the dithering student he's confronted.

**"Just Levi..."**

"Understood," Todoroki hesitantly replies. "But—"

"What's your name?" the charcoal-haired man presses.

With taut fingers inadvertently hugging Levi's fingers, Todoroki nods. "Todoroki. Shoto Todoroki..." Seemingly abashed by revealing his name, Todoroki lowers his head.

"I see. Well, Shoto...have you ever asked yourself if your purpose here is worth fighting for?" Todoroki nods. "Have you ever looked back and wondered if your efforts will matter at all in the end, Shoto?" Todoroki nods again. "Have you wondered if what you're doing is right or wrong, Shoto?" Todoroki vertically shakes his head. "Well, Shoto...have you ever asked yourself if you deserve to die for picking the path you're on?" Although delayed, Todoroki offers a poignant nod, and upon closer inspection, a glass-like sheen coats his eyes.

With what seems to be an attempt to erase the visceral frown on his lips, the dual Quirk-user gradually pushes his expression back into one of indifference. "Why do you ask?" Frost licks his hollow words, and within a matter of moments, his mien wavers with dolor.

I hate to make you feel this shitty, Levi inwardly sighs, but your reactions say a lot about you. From your note, it sounds like I'd have fun putting trash where it belongs—under my foot. Are humans weapons? Maybe. If they are, it seems like one of the greatest weapons to sharpen or dull them is emotion. Levi's expression gnaws at grimness, but to him, it almost feels as though the tips of his lips are being caressed softly by feathers. Hey, Hanji...how are you and the rest? When I walk through those gates...I expect the place to be spotless. What? Did you think my expectations would change? No. In fact, I'll set the bar higher.

"Didn't I already tell you? Pay attention next time." The hand beneath his trembles. "I walked the same path. Doubt. I don't know if what I've fought for is right or wrong, and I accept that. But, I don't regret my decisions. Dwelling on regret is about as fun to clean up as a shit stain is." Levi provides a minimal nod.

"What do you mean?" Todoroki questions as his head languidly lifts to look Levi in the eyes. "Sorry. I can't...think clearly." In the enchanting eyes of darkened gray and turquoise rests a writhing undertone of what perhaps could be likened to a certain jadedness.

With his head submerged in a torrent of memories, the Captain now becomes aware of his blank stare into Todoroki's eyes. He blinks, but his eyes don't dare stray from the audacious eyes before him.

"Remember the questions I asked you? I was a student here. Those questions led me here." His curled forefinger that rests at his side gently taps the roof. "I was faced with a decision, and I chose wrong. What I lost was invaluable."

"How—"

Levi sharply entwines his fingers with Todoroki's; the tips of his fingers curl into Todoroki's palm. "You like to interrupt me at the most inconvenient times." His tenacious digits now simmer and immediately loosen. "Why am I here now? Well, there's more than one interpretation to that. Don't be the trash I was. Clean yourself up." He nods once. "Now...I'm here because of the brats like you that want to pull the same shit that I did."

Until my death, Levi reminds himself, I will fight. They are my wings. They're my freedom. With each death, the sea rises, but I can soar higher than it from the wings they leave me with. I don't expect to see the person I see today alive tomorrow. I don't expect to see the person I see today dead tomorrow. I didn't expect their deaths when they died, but I didn't expect them to survive. Even though I was alone before associating with others like myself when I walked those dirty streets with nothing but a knife, I never felt as alone as when they died. They became my reason to fight, and they were slain mercilessly. I was lost until I could finally hear them again. Hey... I never told you all that you did your best, did I? You did your best. That was enough. It was a job well done. You all endured enough shit. Rest. I'll finish the job. I'll carry the burdens if I can carry your wills. Thank you. "Shinzou wo sasageyo." Yes, I devote my heart.

As though being insinuated into a feathery embrace of wings that aren't quite palpable, Levi glances around the rooftop at the abrupt surge of warmth shuddering through his being. Although transparent as a mental photograph, he can envision the faces he once stood by surrounding him. Endearing and condescending smiles alike begin to materialize, but they swiftly ebb away into the shadows of the night.

Even if I'm known as the strongest guard here and the strongest soldier there, U.A.'s Strongest Guard thinks to himself, I won't say that I am. The strongest can't save everyone. The strongest can't know the true outcome of their choices. I couldn't save them. I killed some of them. Is this the right path? I don't know. I've kept this tall-ass brat here longer than he would've had before. Levi's gaze returns to the silent student in front of him, and for a moment, he finds himself subliminally pondering what the formation of an authentic smile from the student would look like.

The deluge of silence raining down is the kind of silence that cools the skin yet fails to discountenance the atmosphere. Within this frosty, adhesive coating, however, is the soft sensation of warm breaths fleetingly being expelled.

Todoroki, as though waiting in silence for something, tightly hugs his fingers back around Levi's; apprehensive relief paints itself across his mien and reflects faintly in his glassy eyes. "Then...has anyone told you to jump?" Lachrymose eyes being affected by heterochromia lock with the torpid eyes of monochrome staring back at them. "That they would be happy if you did? That you aren’t worth enough for anyone to weep over you? Th-That being a Hero means giving happiness to someone who deserves it, and therefore...because you're worthless, your actions are justified, and everyone can benefit from your death?" A narrow stream of tears slips down from his right eye—immediately succeeding the formation of this stream is a second one stemming from his left eye—but he still musters up a husky, blithe chuckle. "I suppose I wouldn't mind being beaten and scolded for opening my mouth. As long as…” His buzzing hiss echoes into the absence of sound.

Levi begins to recall standing at the edge of the very same rooftop he currently stands upon. Deciding to seize an opportunity to secure the information that Erwin was likely to have on his person, he made the choice to trust in his comrades in defending against the villains which beleaguered U.A. However, his choice sacrificed their lives. He could only watch as his friends were dismantled before his eyes, but this horrific turn of events unfettered his scorching rage. Savaging the villains that cut down his friends without a hint of remorse to be found, he didn't hesitate to provide the damned villains with torturous deaths.

Todoroki sighs, "You came here to clean up the shit on the roof..."

Recognizing that he slaughtered the villains rather than simply reprimanding them, Levi brought together his teeth as tears tumbled down his cheeks. Emptiness snapped at his chest as a river of memories drowned his head; once again, he was alone—the few he knew left him again and again—but his drive to find another reason to live had been suffocated with the lives of his comrades. He cursed himself for his mass murder from failing to staunch his torrent of bestial emotion, and he shuffled closer to the edge of the roof. Peering out into the night draping over the U.A. campus, he sighed with fuming breaths. Glancing back at the bloodbath consuming the roof, he began to stage a scene to abrade the idea of his choice being to commit suicide.

Todoroki blinks. "...but I'm adding to the mess."

"I'm not leaving you behind," the lone survivor of his group muttered to himself while plucking his bloodied knife from the ground. "Wanting to fly... Wanting freedom... Wanting to fly to freedom to fly through freedom... I said you could trust me. I was wrong. Tch. So, I'll fly to wherever you're at. It better be cleaner than this hellhole. The birds with the most impressive wings fall the farthest. Since I failed the missions that we all shared...I won't fail my mission of devoting myself to you, our goals, or our petty dreams. You did your jobs. Now, I need to fulfill mine." Plunging the blade into his chest, he drew it back out with a stifled snarl of agony. "Sorry to keep you waiting." After insinuating the knife into the hand of the corpse which he had left to bleed out, he stepped off the roof to glide with his broken wings to a broken freedom.

Now recalling the blissful words of admonishment for his actions and encouragement to fight on from his friends once he took a step into death itself, Levi loosens his grip around Todoroki's hand.

You told me not to fall yet, Levi reminisces as he watches two saline rivers of silver cascade gently down Todoroki's cheeks. You told me to fight death itself to survive. You reminded me that if I want something done, then to do it myself. Fight. Win the battle I started. Don't half-ass the job. For your sakes, I fulfilled those desires we shared. Now...my desire is to save the kids who want to throw their lives away like I did. I was foolish then... I never recognized that my life was still important. Even though I lost all the people I cared about, I realized that I could still fight for them. I hated unnecessary casualties, yet I wanted to become one myself. So, Shoto...you won't be succumbing to this battle yet. 

Levi promptly perishes the dissonance ravaging his mind by liquidating his thoughts on his memories.

"Isn't this what I deserve?" the current U.A. student queries. "That's what I was taught to think, and it’s become all that I know." His chin tucks in towards his chest while he firmly squeezes Levi's fingers with his own.

The Captain tilts his head. "You're still here, despite being taught to think that." His thumb wraps around Todoroki's. "Hey. Don't obsess over the shit thrown at you. Are we all worthless in the end? I don't know. But, you're not worthless. You can trust me, but whether or not you decide to is your choice. Since your legs aren't broken, if you want something to fight for, if you want to be useful, if you don't want to be a burden...stand up." Steel eyes analyze the capricious boy with two-toned hair.

"I...don't know," Todoroki sibilates with chipped words. "All I've ever been is a burden. I’ve been told that so many times, and I can’t remember if there was a time when I disagreed. Even my appearance was enough to severely damage someone close to me." His countenance soaked by tears twitches in vacillation.

"No one can escape being a burden to someone else. Some are larger burdens than others. Right now, you're a burden, and so am I. However, because we're alive, we carry ourselves as burdens. When you're dead, you can only watch as the people around you suddenly have a new burden to bear. So, don't be an asshole. Make your choice."

Ever recalcitrant, Todoroki abstains from biting down on a choice. "You've only just met me," he murmurs.

Beyond keeping you awake, Levi thinks to himself, something draws me to you. You have potential. Your hand is warm, but I'd still like to wash my hands as soon as possible. Something about you is different from the others—looks included, and I’ve seen Four Eyes, Erwin, Mikasa, and Eren. Dammit, I'm thinking about this too much.

"Didn't I tell you that I don't regret this decision?" the shorter of the two remarks with unhurried yet jagged words. "I'll look back at my decisions after they've been made, perhaps, but in that moment when the decision is made...that's all you can do—decide on something. Don't be fickle like an idiot when it counts."

"Tch." He scrunches his eyes closed for a moment before staring down at his left hand. "That emblem on your cloak... The Wings of Freedom?" Levi nods at this. "Is freedom really as simple as cutting down the villains lurking in this world?"

Levi's brows raise a bit. "No. That's my opinion, but freedom isn't one thing. Freedom is something you have to define. To do that, you need to be alive." His pupils flick to Todoroki’s, piercing through them like lances.

"To expand my horizons? I suppose you're right, but even so, I don't want to be here." His teeth roll his lower lip between them as his head swiftly yet subtly jerks downwards to a minute degree. "Can I a-ask what you felt when you were here, then?" He hangs his head and partially obscures his expression from his hair fluttering down and pooling across it.

The only people Levi entrusts with the fact that he once stepped off this roof and collided with the ground are a select few of those he meets with the same goal in mind as he had had. However, Erwin and Hanji were the exceptions—they knew before Levi could inform them of the truth, and fortunately, they kept this information confidential.

"Very well. I didn't admit it to myself at the time, but I felt alone." He notes how Todoroki stays his eyes on their entwined hands; these eyes remain open for quite a bit longer before he blinks again. "I had friends that I trusted, but I felt alone. I was never alone, but I felt alone. Shoto, when someone dies, they aren't leaving you alone. They're always there. You take a part of them when they die. Don't forget the past—even the shittiest moments." His eyes begin to droop a bit from the lack of sleep, yet he still seems perfectly awake and alert.

Todoroki curls his lips back a bit and firmly latches his free hand onto Levi's free hand. "I know you know already, but you're not alone." He lifts his head as a pair of tears drip down from his chin; a look resembling perhaps muddled perturbation grips his expression before melting down into dismay. "Isn't it...mortifying to have s-someone reach out to you?"

Unsure of how to react to the brusque, intended affection of sorts, Levi momentarily finds himself nonplussed.

What the hell is this kid doing? he asks himself as Todoroki's thumb begins to stroke Levi's knuckles. He's looking at me with open eyes that aren't aware of what's going on. Endeavor's "masterpiece," right?

Levi's gaze unconsciously drifts away from Todoroki's mien to glimpse at their hands. "Not at all," the charcoal-haired man replies. "There's no point to this," he now coldly asserts. "'You've only just met me,' after all." Unamused yet seemingly entertained, Levi repositions their recently-joined hands so that his lies atop Todoroki's.

"No point to what?" The heterochromatic student cautiously resists against Levi and pushes his hands in Levi's direction.

"Huh?" The Captain squints a bit. "For someone so tall, your perception is small." He espies their hands that Todoroki himself fastened together while easily negating Todoroki's resistance with his own. “There’s no point in lending a hand to someone you’ve just met, right?” His eyelids threaten to horizontally split his pupils in half.

Todoroki fervently shakes his head as harrow-stricken fractals of frigid zircon dance across Levi’s left hand. “Wrong,” he utters in a soft growl. “That’s…not what I was trying to imply at all. I assume you know that. Ah?” Now noticing the steady stream of ice shards crawling from his hand, he clamps his teeth down on his inner, lower lip. “I’m sorry… When I don’t know what to do and lose control over my thoughts, this sometimes happens. Yet…it’s usually convenient for me.”

You’re more timid than I remember, Levi cogitates while promptly pinning Todoroki’s hands back behind the head of red and white; he crosses the student’s wrists and holds them fast with one hand while lowering his foot down onto Todoroki’s chest. Will I break you if I threaten to exploit you and treat you like a filthy animal? How deep into your psyche will I cut until I can determine what your priorities are? Again, I hate to do this to you, but if I subject you to fear, I’m more likely to get the accurate answers I want.

“Don’t apologize,” Levi scoffs with a vacant expression that abrades any vestige of emotion that might have once been present. “I see now. You want me to hate you to turn the tables.” As anticipated, he observes Todoroki’s visible astonishment. “If that’s what you want, I’ll deliver. No one’s going to come to your rescue. Isn’t that right?”

Is this the right decision? the Captain asks himself as he gradually allows more of his weight to fall onto Todoroki’s chest from his foot. I don’t know. He seems terrified. I saw him at the Sports Festival, and he was much colder than this. I’d like to know what broke him the most. Was what he mentioned on the note the main reason, or was it something else?

With jittering, magnified eyes, Todoroki silently sobs beneath Levi. “Please…” he begins in a gasp before jerking the leash on his words and attempting to compose himself. “I suppose I was created to be beaten down like this.” He curls in on himself to his best ability, but Levi reprimands this action with a firm kick to Todoroki’s side. “Sorry…” Todoroki receives the same punishment once again as he grits his teeth. “Levi…do you hate me?”

Levi remains silent. He stares with empty conviction in his eyes at Todoroki’s debilitated state. Severing any signs of allowing the dual Quirk-user any clemency, Levi ponders how Todoroki has so easily convinced himself that Levi is likely—yet not truthfully—acting with indignance driving his motives.

“I see,” Todoroki sighs. “Above all else…” A vague smile flickers across his mien as Levi’s heel digs down into the student’s chest. “I should’ve known that I can’t escape from this. If you don’t need me, then leave me.” 

Is that it? the raven-haired male wonders. You were trained to be a weapon, but you seem to be the farthest thing from one.

“You work fine as a rug.” Levi’s grip on Todoroki’s wrists threatens to snap the student’s hands off. “I’d have fun beating you into one.” He internally shakes his head at his last remark. “I could train you like a dog to be whatever I want.”

“No,” Todoroki inveighs with vitriol varnishing his voice. “I’ve welcomed blades to be stabbed into my back for so long, but I’m sick of being used and believing that I _should_ be used—that _that’s_ my purpose. You’re right… My legs aren’t broken.” With a crestfallen, resolute grimace, he blinks down another stream of tears. “Let me go.”

“And if I decline?” Levi’s eyes eerily lift open from being indifferent slits of gray. “Stay put. That’s an order.”

The refractory student deliberately disobeys his orders and writhes helplessly in Levi’s hold. “I don’t want to fight you, and I’m painfully aware I’d never win, but…” He inhales deeply. “Levi, I’ve discovered something from talking to you. It’s my belief, but I’m going to choose to follow it…without any regrets. If all humans are created equal—albeit that some are definitely more equal than others, and that humans are awful creatures—saying I hate myself means I hate the people I’ve loved and the people I’ve never met. What am I? Beneath it all, just a human. What are you? A human. I don’t hate you. Yet, my mind still argues that it isn’t _what_ I am that I hate, but my unique _identity_. Even then, no matter how much I loathe it, I can’t change it, nor the vessel it resides in. Developing that hatred still degrades what I am—I guess hatred _does_ strengthen weaknesses—and therefore…the rest should be obvious.” 

Todoroki’s staid state silences his struggling against Levi, who relaxes his grip. “Saying I abhor that identity is selfish when it’s supposedly a gift, but everyone is selfish,” he continues. “I’m still not so easily swayed into this belief, but I’m choosing to follow it. I don’t want to live, but I don’t want to regret choosing to die. Ah. Thank you for listening to that. Thinking about it now…was this your goal?” In his lightless eyes coruscates compassion.

The older of the two allows his grip to fall away from Todoroki, and the latter seizes this opportunity to coil his arms around Levi’s torso. “Don’t go around hugging shady figures,” Levi sighs, indubitably taken aback by Todoroki’s brusque action. “Shoto, I’ll apologize for treating you like shit again. I can see that you trust me, and for that…thank you.” Although smiling crosses his mind, his countenance remains neutral and unfazed. “If you want an answer, fight death itself to claim it. Until you find a reason to live, fight. Can you say you’re living, otherwise? Can you say that a life where your ass is always being beaten by someone is living? Can you say that living for the purpose of dying is living?” His brows march upwards to a minute degree. “Now, how does this all make you feel?”

You seem to long for a purpose beyond the one forced onto your shoulders, the Captain thinks to himself while adjusting to the sensation of feeling each breath Todoroki takes against his chest. You’re tired of being used, and I’m sure you’re afraid of it. I see… You were trained to be an emotionless weapon, but you subliminally rejected that, despite it being what you carried on living for. I’ll assume you were the breach in your own walls, and for that, you thought of yourself as shit. Is this why you’re uncertain, fearful, and timid?

Todoroki sighs softly as the breeze sweeping through the night wraps the two up into a chilly blanket. “Warm. Maybe…calm. Reassured? Be—”

“Hey, hey. I didn’t ask for a list,” Levi murmurs, but his words are dulled around the edges.

You’re an enigma, Levi inwardly maunders. I can’t quite change your mind about flying yourself to your grave, but I can change the overall way you feel just like that? No. Superficial feelings. A moment of respite. What a damn headache… This kid’s compassionate. I read some of your story from that note, but I’d like to hear it all from you yourself. Levi, although insidiously beginning to falter from exhaustion, cranes his neck to stare up at the inky ocean illuminated faintly by silky waves of silver and glimmering shells of blue, white, yellow, orange, and red. 

Erwin…do you remember when I was trying to drink my tea in peace and you interrupted me? Levi finds himself wondering. The moon looked like this—a waxing half-moon—but you and your tall-ass legs blocked it from my sight. You asked me what I was doing and how I was doing, and you sat beside me. That became a standard thing for us to do. You never hugged me, but you gripped my shoulders with a faint smile. You patted my head for a moment and told me you were kidding. That was the first time I let you see my smile. Erwin, my tea hasn’t tasted the same. What the hell did you do to it?

Levi at last continues, sighing, “Better?” Todoroki nods slowly. “Good.” 

“My mother once hugged me like this. I never felt alone during those times.” His voice, like the tranquil, radiant ocean of sapphire and aquamarine, crashes down expectedly yet unhurriedly onto a field of grainy gold. “Despite your violent approaches, you’re one of the kindest people I’ve met.”

Unraveling slowly, Levi’s expression threads itself free from a frown. You’re a Hero, Shoto, he internally informs himself. You consider me to be kind like that? Fine. What defines “kindness” also depends on the person. The person I’m speaking to seems to be deprived of it. I see… I can imagine you’ve pushed your classmates away. Levi slightly furrows his brows at the sweltering tidepool of warmth collecting in his chest. I can’t remember the last time I was hugged. I don’t remember if I was. Is this kid the first?

“You’re trying to help someone who doesn’t need it? Hmph,” he scoffs with a relatively animated expression for the perpetual frown which encompasses his countenance. “Help yourself first.” He rests his hand on Todoroki’s forearm.

The taller of the two feigns a frosty smile as his eyes meet Levi’s; steel irises painted in jet-black are adorned with diminutive fragments of white and silver before flicking closed and amicably meeting with Todoroki’s. “Midoriya must have influenced me more than I thought. I’ve never been one to give affection. Then again, I’ve never been dragged out of killing myself by a stranger…” Poignant spheres of arresting, gelid minerals of two separate deposits roll down to the rooftop.

“Well, then…wipe that fake-ass smile off your face, Shoto.” Now captivating Todoroki’s attention, Levi offers him a small smile.

Todoroki’s head tilts to the side. “Hm?” he questions with the innocence of a curious puppy. “What do you mean?” His words flutter from his mouth like minuscule, fresh fractals of ice coalescing into tears of snow.

With perfunctory movements, U.A.’s Strongest Guard firmly grips Todoroki’s shoulders as the remnants of his smile evaporate into the sky of his mind where they condense into memories. “If you’re going to smile, do it right. Make it genuine. Don’t half-ass it.” Smooth, honeyed motions of gingerly combing digits transiently glide through a sweet bed of soft, silky tendrils steeped in white and red and tinged with gray; the Captain intimately tousles Todoroki’s hair for a moment.

Seemingly starstruck, the dual Quirk-user simply stares up at Levi with an awkward, petrified gaze for a few moments. However, this queer expression thaws to evince what appears to be a ragged, sincere smile. “I’m…grateful,” he sighs with mirth lacing his cool, affable words. “I don’t know how to say it. I don’t know what I’m feeling. I don’t know how to describe it…but it’s nice. It’s so nice that it almost hurts.” His brows arch into squiggly mountains, but he says nothing more.

Nodding his head almost unnoticeably from a leaden layer of exhaustion enfolding him into its jaws, Levi groggily listens to the dull, whetted sighs of the whimsical wind that splash at the vacuity of silence like misty waves lapping up at the shore. “Just what are you thinking, Shoto?” Ashen words of velvet hum in a whispering melody with the scratching of the wind.

He’s still clinging to me, Levi ponders as a few threads of red tickle and lick his cheek, despite implying that he wanted to throw his emotions away. I don’t mind it. But, this does make me wonder if your father was—or is—physically abusive. Not that I can say much with what I’ve done. The look in your eyes when I pinned you down asked me not to put you through that torture again.

“I honestly don’t know. It was cold. Everything. Everything was…cold—numb, perhaps. I don’t know. It never became warmer, yet the blanket of numbness was lifted. I was selfish, and I wanted to be warm, I wanted to understand, and I wanted to find answers. It hurt.” The younger of the two lazily shrugs his shoulders against Levi’s shoulder. “Hugging you like this…mitigates it a bit. Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” With movements doused in guilt-infused gasoline, Todoroki dejectedly detaches himself from Levi.

An ephemeral ember of time flares up and flickers out as Levi’s brows encroach on the threshold of his forehead. Thinking with the absence of awareness occupying his mind, he treads through his thoughts as solicitude overturns his actions. In a blinding moment of crystalline clarity, Levi spreads out his arms like mosaic wings likened to perhaps those of a butterfly.

“If it keeps you from acting like an idiot, I don’t mind,” Levi utters in a hard whisper while denying himself the thought that he genuinely does somewhat enjoy the piquant sensation of being embraced. “Come here, Shoto.” As if declaring to save and henceforth protect the student suffocating in abject vacillation, he shelters the boy who planned to fall from the sky from committing suicide by winding his falsely feathered arms around him.

Affection… The raven-haired male begins to ruminate the concept of affection. I never saw much of it, and nor did I offer much of it. No one asked me for it. I never asked anyone for it. Yet… Damn you, Kenny. Maybe we are all drunk on something to push forwards and fight on.

As Levi inevitably inhales the scent emanating from Todoroki—like chilly morning dew showering bamboo—Todoroki winces while reciprocating the intimate gesture. “I guess exploiting me would be easy for you.”

That’s what happens when you’re mercurial and gullible, Levi thinks as the rhythmic snaps of his heart cascade throughout his being and pool into the reservoirs of his ears. 

“I have nothing to exploit you for. This is all I do with my time. It’s paid off. Giving you brats a reason to fight for finding a reason to live…” His words recede into a blur of murmuring silence as scarlet-stained memories of smiles from those he previously saved coupled with the final words of those he failed to save resurface in the lake of his mind.

Todoroki’s shoulders flinch, hardening before promptly softening and drooping down. “You dedicate your life to this?” he queries with perplexity peppering his brittle breaths. “Even though I know you’re being honest, I’m still skeptical. I keep doubting it all. You’re handing me all this kindness…yet I still doubt it—how do I deserve it?” The quivering crescent of a frown bends his lips. “I can’t guarantee that this attempt will be my last, either. I’m sure you’ve heard the same from others like me.”

“Am I trying to end your battle? Maybe. Though, determining if and when you’ve won isn’t my decision—decide that for yourself. Why do you deserve this? You’re alive, and that’s enough. Now, get back to your dorm and sleep. Unless you _want_ to feel like shit in the morning.”

Todoroki’s grip around Levi tightens a bit. “I’m not tired,” he pleads in a jittering staccato of syllables jumping through his natural lilt. “But, if you want me to leave, I will.” As if scissors have snipped the corners of his words and frayed their edges, his voice claws at the air.

What are you the most afraid of? Levi asks himself as his hands gradually slink down Todoroki’s side. Have you ever been tormented by nightmares of the past rewriting its ending to something worse than the original outcome? I’d rather not forget the past or muddle it with delusions.

The Captain momentarily lingers in silence as Todoroki’s heart ticks like a clock against his arm. “I can knock you out, but I can’t guarantee you’d be able to haul yourself to class on time,” he nonchalantly remarks. “If I had ordered you to leave, what would you have done?”

Todoroki loosens the hug he’s encircled Levi in. “Ah… I don’t want to talk about that,” he admits slowly.

“I won’t force you to say anything, but I’ll still be an asshole. Is it self-inflicted?” 

“I suppose the least I can do for the effort you’ve put into me is tell the truth. So...yes. No one knows or thinks that the perfect son of Endeavor would slit his wrists.” Like the faint, droning growl of thunder, his voice is singed with a certain degree of grittiness. “I don’t anymore after realizing I’d be questioned for the scars. I’m meticulous with where I cut. Ah. I’ve…said too much. Sorry.” He inhales deeply as his head tips downwards.

“I’ll listen to whatever you want to say,” Levi reassures him; he’s cognizant that Todoroki likely has a part of him supplicating for someone to confide in. “Hey. The next time you have an urge, come see me. I’ll be here. If not, here’s my number.” A soundless sigh slowly slips between his lips as he hands Todoroki a slip of paper with his phone number—Levi typically carries three of these pieces of paper on him at all times.

The dual Quirk-user hesitates before nodding and sliding the paper into his pocket. “Thanks,” he says tersely, yet his words are steeped in scintillating embers of ardor.

Levi nods back at Todoroki, and as he does, the student drapes his chin over Levi’s shoulder. “What? Did my glum face tire you out?” His fingers of malleable steel tread through Todoroki’s locks of ruby and pearl once again; the faint chirps of a grainy rustling bubble up like an icy, effervescent soda.

“No. I’ve never felt so… I can’t describe it, and I’ll spare you a list of connotations. I suppose…I finally feel somewhat human. _I_ exist.” His neck now relaxes as the side of his head is pressed snuggly against the crook of Levi’s neck. “Levi?”

“If you want to say something, just say it…brat,” Levi sighs, but whether or not he’s innocuously teasing Todoroki or deceiving himself—honestly, in either way—remains an anomaly to him.

What kind of shit is coming out of my mouth? Levi inwardly admonishes himself. In the end, my decisions are my own, but I said that without thinking.

“Sorry. Ah. When you were here, did someone stop you?”

The Captain’s vision dims through the narrowing of his eyes. “From choosing to throw it all away? No. From throwing it all away? They pestered me about continuing to fight like insects in my ears.” He glances at either of his hands from over Todoroki’s shoulder and brushes his thumb across the bottoms of his ring and middle finger; the recovered Wings of Freedom symbol from one of his fallen squad members outlines itself in the palm of his hand from his memories. “Value what you have, but be prepared to lose it without warning. Trust and friendship can be a pain in the ass to build, but they can also be cut down in the blink of an eye. When it seems like you’ve lost everything, the world expects only the strong to face another day, and it expects them to be fine. You’re only one person, Shoto. The world is cruel. Don’t become its victim.

“Does that mean you should forfeit the battle? No—you’d be more of an asshole than the world itself. I’m telling you to fight, and I expect you to follow through. Those I’ve fought for thought the same. I’m passing on the beliefs from those I fought alongside, and they died fighting for their beliefs. Does this make accepting it an obligation? No. We all made the decision to adopt the same belief, fight for it, and carry it on. Your decision is your decision. Think about your real friends and foes.” His hands traipse along Todoroki’s side before retreating back to his own sides.

Visible breaths of a foggy white plume as they dip and ascend like the swirling tails of dolphins. An affable aura of pristine threads of an elegant silver deftly weaving through the sky permeates the air. The timorous, elusive dimples of a voiceless clarity audaciously poke their heads out from the awkward blanket of reality. 

The younger of the two offers a brief, firm nod. “Thanks, Levi.” The warmth he gently showers Levi with through his steel embrace flees in a swift deluge as Todoroki retracts his arms and folds his hands into his lap; the warmth which absconds from Levi seems to gravitate towards Todoroki’s cheeks. “I didn’t realize how impactful this would all be. I’m…grateful. But I can’t help but wonder if my views will suddenly change. I know—I shouldn’t be fickle when it matters.” He releases a small sigh. “I still can’t erase the way I feel, and I still can’t say I won’t try something like this again, but…for now, I’ll stay here. I’ll live, and I’ll search for a reason to keep going.” A fragile smile graces his lips. “Is this what love is?”

You’re more oblivious than I thought, Levi thinks to himself. This kid is cute but damaged. I’ll keep an eye on him. Is this love? Whatever you think it is, Shoto. I’d accept it as love. Neither of us knows what love is. It doesn’t sound like a pain in the ass to discover it with him.

“Huh? Don’t be stupid,” Levi mutters dismissively while simultaneously presenting a playful look in his steely eyes.

Todoroki tips his head to the side. “Oh. Sorry, you—”

“What did I tell you about apologizing?”

“Oh. Sorry, I…” The heterochromatic boy snaps his eyes closed and shakes his head. “It’s a habit sometimes. I have to apologize for being alive. Otherwise, I have the… Ah. Ignore that. Sor—” He now hangs his head and presses his left palm against the left side of his face.

Levi grasps Todoroki’s left pinky finger between his thumb and forefinger. “I won’t press, but what were you going to say? Words left unspoken like to turn you into food for regret.” He gently nudges Todoroki’s finger out until it curls back a bit, and within moments, Todoroki’s hand at last lifts from his bleak mien.

Todoroki’s concentration is slathered across his left palm before his digits bend inwards into his flesh to form a fist. “Endeavor,” he whispers with whetted words washed with whirling rancor. “I’m punished for being alive.” 

“How often?” Arid yet invested, Levi’s voice sits above a pleasant whisper.

“When I’m at home,” Todoroki disconsolately admits. “At least twice a week.” Fluttering filaments of a fine gray sway like the mane of a horse—a quadruped, despite its connotations being associated with that of a human being—as Todoroki tosses his hair to the side from it previously impeding his vision.

So, Levi internally groans, the bastard beats you at least twice a week? You’re strong, Shoto. In fact… 

U.A.’s Strongest Guard lifts himself to his feet and extends his hand to Todoroki. “Is that so? Well—” Todoroki’s hand clasps his, and effortlessly is the taller male hoisted up— “I have a proposal: join my squad in the Survey Corps. The Survey Corps prefaced the freedom I have right now.” He notes how Todoroki’s lips thinly part; Levi almost finds this reaction to be amusing.

The Levi Squad is essentially stationed in Japan, but in intervals of three months or less at a time, they return to America for what is an average of a few days. 

Ribbons of hollow sound waggle and whistle softly before Todoroki sighs, “I’ll have to think about that.” Shifting his gaze from the rooftop to Levi, Todoroki swiftly shatters the eye contact they fortuitously form. “Thank you for the offer. I guess…I’ll decide next week. I don’t think I’ll be able to walk this path alone without collapsing, but I’m not deterred yet. Is this the wisest decision? I wonder about that.” His nose points at the sky to peer up into the glittering profound of an onyx ocean of stars. “Freedom… Surviving this battle… A reason to live… I can see them—” his fingers unfurl as he reaches up to the sky slumbering above— “yet they seem impossibly far away.”

“Fly.” Levi tosses his green cloak bearing the Wings of Freedom at Todoroki. “I’ll teach you, or you’ll teach yourself. Make your decision within the next week.” Now staring into the dimly illuminated abyss of city and sky from atop the roof, he rests his hands on his gear and walks towards the edge of the roof. “‘Is this what love is?’ Tell me, Shoto… _is this_ what love is?” He halts his movements as he overlooks the school campus below the dormitory building.

Todoroki absent-mindedly begins to fold up the cloak handed to him. “I’ll tell you when I’ve made a decision I won’t regret.” Silence fleetingly befalls the two. “It aligns with what I’ve come to understand is love.”

Levi bites back the idea of smiling as he thinks, He’s clueless. I don’t know if he sees that different types of love exist. I don’t mind him. I wouldn’t mind having another “suicidal bastard” in my squad. He’s cute—I won’t deny that. Hey, Four Eyes, I know you’re smiling. He’s a good recruit. He’s terrified but prepared to die. We’ll find out if he’s capable of devoting his heart and offering it up to gain freedom…and being prepared to have that freedom burned to ashes in front of him. Above all else…I can protect him. If I can protect one suicidal bastard, I can protect another.

“I see,” Levi slovenly replies. “If this is what you see as love, then I won’t stop you from believing that.” He denies himself a smile. “Hey. Thanks for choosing to live, Shoto. You won’t regret it.”  
  
“I suppose this is love. I like it… Ah. Thank you for being alive, Levi. Even if I’ll likely end up trying again, you’re my reason to battle the beckoning of suicide.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you think something sounds familiar regarding some of the things that levi thought about and recalled, it probably is. let's just say that it's another modification to fit into the world of BNHA.


	12. 「Torn Apart」Split Personality Todoroki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no, this isn't todoroki being split into "todo" and "roki" as two separate humans. also, i am in no way au fait with all the details regarding this disorder, so i apologize if this portrayal is not the most accurate, but keep in mind that this is just a fictional story. as such, there are some things in here that are intentionally not the most realistic—more symbolic than realistic.

**Warnings:**  
Dissociative identity disorder/multiple personality disorder, implied/referenced childhood trauma, self-hatred, self-harm, suicide attempt(s).

  
[𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧]  
𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐨 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐢

Shoto Todoroki was far from someone who would be considered "normal” ever since he had been born. Was it the split, dual-colored hair? No. The heterochromia that further divided him into two halves? Maybe. Possessing two Quirks that were respectively activated on one half of his body or the other? Indeed--possessing more than one Quirk seldom occurred. Yet, that wasn’t what made Shoto so different from the others by the time he had become a teenager. Over time, Shoto gradually developed a split personality—otherwise known as dissociative identity disorder.

As a child, Shoto would occasionally witness his eldest brother Touya on the verge of tears, but as Endeavor began his intense training for Shoto, the reported accident involving Touya soon emerged, and Touya was presumably deceased. Sure, Shoto was saddened by what became the accepted death of his brother, but to fill in the tear in the picture that Touya’s death had created, Shoto imagined as though Touya was still around. Yet, in Shoto’s fantasy world where Touya was alive, the eldest child of the Todoroki family was constantly comforting Natsuo.

Speaking of Natsuo… The second youngest of the Todoroki family was never the same after Touya’s disappearance. Vehement detestation for Endeavor boiled within Natsuo. By Natsuo’s thoughts, Endeavor had been the cause of Touya’s disappearance, and by Natsuo’s experience, he abhorred how harshly Endeavor trained Shoto to become a “masterpiece” capable of surpassing All Might. The second youngest Todoroki had seen Shoto with the fear of failure, the fear of being a disappointment, the fear of becoming someone like the one who instilled fear into him, the fear of being broken from both the inside and the outside—many manifestations of fear were present—in his heterochromatic eyes as he was forcibly pushed to shatter his humanly limits through daily training sessions. He witnessed as his youngest brother would ask their mother why their family never seemed to be a family—why they couldn’t all be happy as a family. Natsuo had seen Shoto pretending as though he was talking to someone a myriad of times, but he thought nothing of it—the habit wasn’t uncommon.

Fuyumi, the second eldest of the Todoroki children, developed quite the motherly side to her throughout Shoto’s childhood. She would cook, clean, tend to Shoto’s wounds, and overall, she became a pivotal hinge that the Todoroki family was unknowingly fastened to to prevent itself from completely falling apart. For a few years, Fuyumi would always tuck Shoto into his futon, and she usually told tales of a happy family of six—idyllic tales of _their own_ family had been told, but Shoto had been too young to make the connection—but little did she know that these ideations would become the ardent flames of Shoto’s vast imagination.

Rei, the wife of Endeavor and mother of the Todoroki children, was the first person that Shoto would run to when tears ceaselessly ran down his cheeks. All she could do without jeopardizing her own safety while her husband trained her youngest son to the point where Shoto was incapacitated on the floor with his own vomit from overexertion, and in tears of physical and emotional torment, was simply attempt to console her son. Endeavor never hesitated to become physical with Rei if she attempted to interfere with Shoto’s training, and due to this, Shoto would often sob to his mother about how much he didn’t want to become someone who would hurt her like Endeavor would. Yet, as time progressed, Rei could only see Enji Todoroki—Endeavor—in Shoto’s left half that resembled her husband, and she openly proclaimed that she hated what she saw—it was “unbearable” to her. Thus, despite how much Rei loved Shoto, how she told him that he didn’t have to be a prisoner of his blood and could still become a Hero, and how she was always there for him, Rei attempted to dispose of Shoto’s left half. Able to withstand seeing Endeavor in Shoto’s left half no more, Rei poured boiling water from a kettle onto Shoto’s face; immediately regretting her decision, she activated her ice Quirk as an impetuous response to her own regrettable, impulsive action. From this, Shoto’s burn over the left half of his face surfaced, but what also surfaced was the fulcrum of Shoto’s later development of multiple personalities.

After the incident with Rei, Shoto capitalized on his ability to transfer himself into another, more peaceful world—one conjured up by altered variations of his memories that had been tailored to being what he saw as perfect. He imagined as though the people he wished to be surrounded by the most were always beside him, that they always loved him, that he was always good enough for them… He wanted to dissociate from reality and the fact that his own mother could wound him because of his own father. Yet, the halcyon world and people that Shoto constructed led to the Shoto that was tethered to reality becoming cold, aloof, and filled with hatred.

Shoto grew to hate his fire Quirk, and he vowed never to use it in combat. He hated the left half of himself that caused his own mother to sear his face with frigid water and scorching ice—it was odd how extreme heat felt cold and extreme cold felt hot for a transient few moments. He hated himself for existing, being imperfect and never enough, being born the way he was, and for causing the damage that he seemingly brought with him wherever he went. He didn’t want to be what made him himself—what gave him a sense of identity as being Shoto Todoroki. So, he dissociated from it all to cope with his past, and in doing so, he was insidiously torn apart by the lack of true identity as his distinct personalities developed. 

By the time Todoroki was fourteen, he formed two other personalities besides being himself—the “Shoto” he had known since he was a child, but that he had neglected in a pursuit of being granted freedom from the excruciating reality he lived in—who was timid, fearful yet always hopeful, emotionally-reserved yet sensitive, and taciturn. His first personality to emerge was vaguely exuberant, fairly loquacious, open to receiving and offering affection to those around him, and a bit oblivious to his emotions. His second and seemingly last personality was vindictive, cold, remorseless, and incredibly violent during internal culminations of hatred—this violence was acted upon through acts of self-mutilation.

With his personalities developed, Shoto was seen as a typical teenager but with intense, arbitrary mood swings by Endeavor. However, what wasn’t accounted for in this hasty assumption was Shoto’s inability to recall some of the events that transpired each day, and more acutely was the fact that Shoto could not remember his birthday, his age, the names of his siblings, and other information that would have been “normal” to be able to recall off the top of one’s head. 

The most prominent personalities Shoto exhibited had been his affable and amicable personality, and his rancorous and generally unstable personality. His timid personality, or “true personality,” seldom emerged, and on the rare occasion that it did, it almost seemed to be yanked back down within a matter of a few hours. Eventually, however, that timid personality seemed to have disappeared—it had not revealed itself for at least three months.

One afternoon, while Shoto, Fuyumi, and Endeavor ate dinner at the kotatsu, Shoto’s personality had been his “happy personality,” as a generic label. Shoto grinned slightly as he slurped up his cold soba, much in contrast to that morning, where his eyes became fell, malice-dipped daggers that he pierced into the gazes that were adverse enough to lock with his. He felt content, but he almost seemed to be fixated on staring at his soba.

“How was your day, Father?” Fuyumi asked to splinter the silent song of dishes being clinked and tapped.

Endeavor seemed to be suppressing a glare as he glanced over at Shoto. “It was going well,” he sighed. “Shoto, your behavior earlier was unacceptable. I’ve been very lenient about your behavior, but your behavior needs to stop.” 

Shoto tilted his head a bit since he had absolutely no recollection of displaying any “unacceptable behavior” from that day. “Oh, sorry about that. I’ll work on it. What behavior do you mean?” He nodded before offering Fuyumi a small smile as he took another clump of noodles into his mouth.

“Shoto, don’t lie. I did not raise a liar. You know what you did.”

Fuyumi’s shoulders stiffened, and she seemed to be steeling herself to interject, but she swiftly backed down as Shoto’s voice materialized. “Is the problem that I sound like I’m lying? If that’s the case, then I don’t know h—”

Endeavor’s fierce glare silenced Shoto, and moments later, Shoto rested his head on his hand as a disorienting smog gripped his mind. “This is absurd, Shoto. Look at me.” Shoto did not obey, but the world around him became a distant blur of clashing audio. “Shoto. I told you to look at me, and you will follow.”

Shoto blinked heavily to brush the leaden blanket of haziness from his eyes and mind, and he soon met Endeavor’s gaze with a remote, glacial stare. “What?” he muttered in a baritone sibilation.

“ _That_ is what,” hissed the Flame Hero. “Unacceptable. Do not talk to me with that tone, Shoto. Mood swings or not, you still have full control over yourself. Y—Shoto, sit back down. Shoto. Stop there, Shoto. _Now._ Sh—”

Fuyumi waved her hands around. “Let me talk to him, Father…” As Shoto silently slithered back towards his room, Fuyumi’s expression was molded by solicitude and trepidation. “I think it’s more than just mood swings. I don’t think he’s intentionally lying, either. Father…I think something’s wrong with him.” Fuyumi’s voice dissolved into silence as Shoto continued to walk off.

That damn old man pisses me off, Shoto thought to himself. Always in the way, too. I exist, and immediately, I’m not enough. I’m a disappointment. I’m a showcase of everything that’s “unacceptable” and “disgraceful” to him. He doesn’t care, and neither do I, yet I’m still treated like shit. What was he referring to before? What unacceptable behavior? Have _I_ become the unacceptable behavior? I… What am I? What is “I,” and what does it mean to me? What is “me,” etcetera. I don’t know. I don’t remember. But… 

Once Shoto closed himself into his room, he gripped the blade he stowed deep within the threshold of his wallet, and he imagined his arm as that of Endeavor’s arm. He turned his left arm up so that his forearm faced the ceiling as he rested his elbow into a relaxed position on his desk. Yanking up his sleeve to reveal a city of scars protruding from his skin, Shoto twisted his expression asunder into a twitching mirror of unfettered hatred.

“I hate you,” Shoto snarled, but the intended recipient of his virulent inveigh was an anomaly. “Die,” he murmured without emotion as his blade sliced through his flesh.

Yet, before Shoto could carve his third laceration onto his arm, his personality abruptly shifted into his “true personality” from his “bitter personality.”

“A-Ah… Why am I…” Shoto flinched as he immediately released the blade in his fingertips. “There’s so much blood. Stop… I don’t want to be here. Ah… I feel sick. I… Ah. What…do I do?” He frantically attempted to correct the repugnant sight of scarlet streams oozing from his arm with the idea that it was simply paint. “Paint… It’s paint. I don’t remember painting. It’s fine. I-It’s fine…”

Shoto cowered away into his imaginative land, but as he absconded from reality, it felt as though his other personalities clasped his hands and bound them together with chains. Then, those chains became reality. Iron shackles sagged in an arc between his wrists, and as he apprehensively looked up, there stood a familiar-looking version of himself. The conglomeration standing before him held fast an identical blade to the one Shoto had let go of.

With empty eyes saturated with disdain, the web of fuzzy familiarity approached Shoto. “I thought we erased you,” he snapped while pointing the blade at Shoto. “I see. You hid. You hid from the truth. Oh. You’re the original, and _that’s_ why we can’t erase you. You’ve been hiding all this time, have you? Sleeping in your fantasy world of warped delusions?” At the word “delusions,” the figure standing before him that had been welded into an amalgamation of one entity with two entities within it; that amalgamation scowled. “How do you know I’m not a delusion, Shoto?” The looming figure dropped the blade. “Things aren’t quite adding up, are they?”

“No… No, _this_ is reality,” Shoto gulped as he wrapped his fingers around his blade. 

“You’re right, Shoto.” The column of twisting, breathing shadow was mere centimeters from Shoto. “Look at what you’ve converted reality into. You couldn’t escape. You couldn’t hide. You couldn’t dissociate. Your appearances dwindled, and you were hardly seen. I thought we erased you, but it turns out that we can’t—all you are is a coward hiding from the painful truth.” It nudged Shoto up against the wall. “All you are is unacceptable. How you’ve tried to leave them all behind while you hide in a cloud of delusion is sick. Touya died, and you kept living the lie that he didn’t die. You were trained so harshly for a reason completely justified: you’re not enough, Shoto. You’re a disappointment. You’re a cruel, sick failure. Don’t you hate yourself? So do we. Your family would agree.”

Petrified with stupefaction and fear, Shoto began to hyperventilate as he flailed against the wall and aimlessly slashed his blade at the figure pinning him back. “Stop…. Stop! Leave me alone. It’s… I-It’s not true!”

“You wanted to be someplace else as someone else. You got that. Happy. But no matter what you did, it never resolved the growing hatred you tried to repress. Bitter. You should be disappointed in yourself. You should be ashamed of yourself. You should hate yourself. Look at the scars on your arms. It’s not enough, Shoto. _Can you_ be called ‘Shoto’ anymore? Look at the ‘paint’ dripping from your arm. Doesn’t it feel good? Don’t stop. Add more, Shoto. That’s what you deserve. You deserve to die. You don’t belong here, coward. You agitated your own problems, opened your own wounds, let your open wounds fester, and picked at the scars. It’s always been your fault. You didn’t want to be guilty. You didn’t want to take responsibility. You didn’t want them to know about how worthless you are. ‘I hate you. Die.’”

Shoto acted without thinking—his body moved on its own—as he lanced the quivering blade he gripped through the chest of the figure commanding him to die. He gasped and flinched at the actualization of what he had done, but as his jaw creaked open, that being of shadow simply removed the blade from its chest. Not even an undertone of crimson stained the blade.

“Why…” Shoto sobbed. “Why can’t I—”

“You _can’t_ win this game, Shoto,” the figure sighed. “You created it all. But you can’t escape from it now that you’ve chosen to make it. You can’t run forever. You can’t hide forever. You can’t get away with the crime of living forever. We never wanted you to create this. Why did you make us? Why do you want to end _our_ world? _Our_ lives? It’s sick. You tried to kill off the ‘mistakes’ you made because you realized you didn’t want them. They called you out on your sick ways, and you want them executed. You can’t delete us without deleting yourself. What matters isn’t the outcome… What matters is who deals the final blow. Isn’t it funny…that the reality isn’t _our_ inability to erase _you._ No. It’s _your_ inability to erase _us._ We were scared of what would happen, but we see the truth now. So…”

Shoto yelped as the blade that his own assassin held transfixed his heart, but his shriek was stifled by the frigid hands of shock. 

“Goodbye, Shoto Todoroki.”

In what remained of his sight and consciousness, Shoto finally opened his eyes. He weakly whipped his head around to find that he was curled up in the corner of his room. No one else was in the room but himself. Through the smudged lenses of his mind, he could see his imaginary, perfect family surrounding him, but he was unable to hear their voices.

Shoto had no memory of returning to his room, but he did remember his disconcertment upon seeing his arm oozing with rivulets of a resplendent red. His memories, realizations, thoughts, and delusions swished around and amalgamated into a sundered stream of sickening dubiety and vacillation. Unable to differentiate reality from thought, Shoto scrunched his eyes closed, and when next he opened his eyes, the intangible figures he had shielded himself with had dissipated.

There’s something in my chest _,_ Shoto abruptly realized. It’s moving. Every time I breathe… Ah. It’s where my hea— 

Shoto’s eyes gasped as his right hand became limp and fell away to his side, but what it had been concealing before…was the blade he had impaled his own chest with. His lips split to expel a cry for succor, but it dawned on him that he was unable to recall the names of his siblings. He spurned the idea of shouting out for his father, and thus, with fragile conviction, Shoto lifted his hand again.

No matter how many versions of “me” exist, he cogitated as his hand hovered over the blade protruding from his chest, it doesn’t change what I am. Even if I want to escape, run, and hide, I can’t erase what now _is_ “me.” I can’t change it. I can’t change them. They’re right… I tried to tear myself from reality. I tried to tear myself from my hatred, my pain, and my rage. I tried to live in a perfect world with the perfect family. but I was a coward. I wanted to be loved, good enough, happy… But I didn’t do anything to try and _get_ those things. All I did was run and hide from the pain, the truth, reality, my mistakes and regrets, my emotions, my past… No matter how much I want to dissociate, I can’t change the truth. No matter how many lives I live, I can’t change the person living them. No matter how many times I’m torn apart, it won’t change the fact that every piece of me that’s torn and given a new identity and purpose…is still just “me.” I can’t escape from myself. Unless… 

Shoto pinched the blade shifting in his chest with his breaths with his trembling hand, and with a grimace, he tore out the blade from his heart. He tore out the life from his body. He tore out his personalities and himself from the vessel they once inhabited, and with that, Shoto finally became “himself” again.


	13. 1 |「Broken」Abused Todoroki

**Warnings (potentially apply to all parts of this one-shot):  
** Abuse, manipulative Endeavor, suicidal thoughts/actions, self-hatred, suicide attempt(s).  
  


[𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧]  
𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐨 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐢

I found a notebook on the ground in the neighborhood. After walking around town for a while, I found a broken pencil. So, I guess this is my journal now. 

I’m Shoto, and my fake last name is Haji. My actual last name is Todoroki, but my father covered that up because I’m Quirkless, and I still have to go to school. I think I’m twelve right now, but I honestly don’t know. I’m told that I’m twelve, so I don’t argue. 

The process is always the same. Regardless of the alterations—negligible or glaring—it’s still the same. It runs like clockwork, so even though it’s always on time, there’s still a minute—not a one-minute—difference in the time by the end of the year. Even if the clock is broken, time keeps moving. Even if the belt is broken, _he_ keeps beating me. Even if _I’m_ broken, the abuse keeps going. 

At six in the morning, he kicks me awake. I sleep in the basement with a bare, lumpy pillow, and a small, threadbare blanket. Every morning, I’m greeted with a behemoth of a foot to my stomach. With trembling, throbbing limbs, I grimace as I stand. He kicks me down until my body kicks itself to the floor. There are times when I cry, but it isn’t because I’m sad—it just hurts.

At four in the afternoon, he “trains” me. I don’t think I’d call it training in the way he wants, though. He punches me, uses his Quirk on me, kicks me, pins me, and yeah. It’s not fun. It hurts a lot. I’m not allowed to cry in front of him, even though he tells me I’m useless, worthless, weak, and a lot of other bad things. 

At ten at night, he beats me with a belt. I hate being beaten with the belt. He strikes my ribs, my shoulders, my pelvis, and my legs the most. He never hits anywhere on my arms or hands below my shoulders, or anything above my chest. But the reason why I detest the belt is because the belt that’s used is the same one that was used to beat my mother. I remember watching him beat her, but I couldn’t do anything…because we both would’ve gotten hurt more.

I don’t have any friends at school, but I’m not allowed to have any, either. I’m scared of them. I don’t trust anyone. I feel like my teachers will beat me after class, even though they never have. The other students think I’m weird. I’m always being pushed around. I’m constantly given cruel comments about how I look, how I never speak, and how I’m always alone. They don’t know about what goes on at home. 

At home, I have two siblings currently here—Fuyumi and Natsuo. I’m glad they don’t get beaten very often. If the opportunity arises, they aid me in whatever ways they can. They apply creams and liquids that scorch the skin around my wounds, but I feel like it’s a waste when I’m beaten again and again. They hug me and tell me to stay strong, but I don’t like giving or receiving affection, and nor do I hope I stay strong enough to keep living through this. 

I don’t know why I haven’t decided to end it all and perish this awful life of odious misery. Maybe I’m hoping for a peaceful resolution at the end of it all. Maybe I think that life surely has a reward for enduring this excruciating agony. Maybe it’s just as simple as: I don’t want to die. I want to escape the pain, but I don’t want to die. Yet, it would be so much easier just to die. I’m confused.

Every time he beats me, he hugs me afterwards and says it’s all to make me perfect. I don’t like his hugs. That’s why I don’t like affection. But I always end up returning the hugs. I know he hates me, so why does he hug me? If I’m so useless, how am I also doing such a good job? A good job doing what? I wish I knew. 

Sunday is different from the other days of the week. He always leaves right after he beats me at four, and he never comes back until at least eight. I don’t know where he goes or what he does, but Fuyumi and Natsuo take care of me. They’re unbelievably kind. Fuyumi always gives me quite the variety of pills whenever I eat. I don’t know what they’re for—except the occasional painkiller—but I don’t like taking them. Natsuo always has to give _him_ a weekly report on my health, and if I’ve suffered a bit too many crippling injuries or whatever, _he_ treats me himself sometimes. It’s probably to lessen the prospect of abuse at home when I go to school.

One of my teachers asked me to stay after class today. She’s the teacher I have before going home. I didn’t want her to beat me for disobeying, so I stayed. My teacher asked me if everything was all right at home, so I told her it’s my normal household. She asked if I was hungry, but I didn’t want her to give me anything, so I shook my head and said I had to go. I left, and now I’m afraid to go back. She’ll beat me. She’ll kick me five times for every lie. She’ll hate me.

I like school, but I also don’t. I’ve never been beaten like he beats me at home when I’m at school. I’ve never had a group of people making fun of me like they do when I’m at home. I can’t get out of being hurt, can I? It feels like there are blades perforating my chest, but I still smile and dismiss the pain. I want to curl up and cry, but I can’t. By the time I don’t have to fake my smile for anyone, the pain is numb. It’s there, but it’s numb, and then I don’t feel like crying anymore. I can’t remember the last time I cried over something unrelated to being physically hurt.

School is boring. I guess writing is kinda fun, but in English, we never write about the things I want to write about. It’s always: what do _you_ think the author or speaker means? I don’t know what someone else is thinking. I’ve learned some cool new words, though. I like using them. Science is kinda fascinating, but it never answers the questions I have about life, happiness, and things like that. P.E. is something I dread. I have to share a locker with someone, and even though I change in the stalls they have, it’s uncomfortable knowing the person I’m with probably knows that that’s what I’m doing. My partner tries to talk to me, but I don’t respond because I’m scared. I want to run and play the games, but I don’t have the energy, and it hurts so much to run. I’ve passed out a couple of times before, so I got sent to the Nurse, and basically, she told me I need to eat more. I passed out because of malnourishment, and therefore I should just eat more. I wish. If I wasn’t kicked awake in the morning, maybe I’d eat a little more when I actually have the chance to eat. 

As per usual, he beat me with the belt at four. He sibilated, “You’ve been weaker than normal. I train you for a reason. Obviously, you’re not giving it enough effort. We will spend additional time training, then. Until you shape up, your training is going to be grueling.” But after he beat my knees with the belt buckle until I collapsed, he assured me, “You’ll do better tomorrow, right? We’ll make you stronger. You’re doing good, Shoto.” He hugged me and patted my head. How am I supposed to get stronger—for years, I haven’t gotten any stronger—when I’m being treated like this? If he really wanted me to get stronger, he’d let me eat and wouldn’t beat me. But I’d rather be the one beaten than have my siblings hurt. 

My teacher didn’t beat me. I thought she would, and I was fully prepared for it, but she gave me a sandwich and milk. She told me she’d be more than happy to give me something to eat after school. But I felt bad, so I said it was okay, and she assured me that she wanted to. I must have thanked her at least ten times. Both the sandwich and the milk tasted phenomenal, but I was full after only eating a little. I didn’t want to waste what she gave me, so I finished the rest. I shouldn’t have eaten so much. My stomach ached, and now my throat burns because I threw it up. Lesson learned, even though I knew I shouldn’t have from the beginning.

Fuyumi brushed my hair this afternoon, and it felt really nice. She asked if she could brush my hair, and I never entertained the idea of declining. Her smile always makes me smile. I’m so glad she’s my sister, but I’m sad she has to live with _him._ She made me an omelette while he was away, but I still felt sick, so I offered for Natsuo to have it instead. She really wanted me to eat, but I just couldn’t. Now I feel really bad. I probably sounded like I rejected her omelette, and now she’s worried about me. I’m a terrible brother. Why does she still love me?

I can’t sleep. I can’t see anything, either. Hopefully this is somewhat legible. I don’t even know what I have to write about right now. I’m tired, but I can’t fall asleep. I keep thinking about how horrible of a person I am. I feel so guilty. I just make people worry about me, hate me, or pick on me for existing. I’ve been told I’m so skinny that I might as well just starve to death—no one would miss me or be surprised. It hurts to hear comments like that. It’s not my choice to be like this. I don’t _want_ to be like this. But I can’t escape from this life. I want to leave and run away, but I don’t want to leave Fuyumi or Natsuo behind. I don’t want them to be beaten in my place. I wish I could tell someone about this all, but I can’t. If I had just been born with a Quirk, would all of this agony never have existed? It’s my fault for being born a Quirkless failure. I wish I didn’t believe it when I know it isn’t true, but I’ve been told that so many times that I believe it. 

It’s been a long time since I wrote in here, but I’m still alive…somehow. I honestly don’t know if being alive offers more benefits or ramifications. I asked Fuyumi if life is worth living when I only see years of excruciating torment in store, and she asked me if I had ever thought about hurting myself or trying to die. As of late, both have been a strong yes, but I didn’t want to worry her. She told me she’s always going to be here for me, and that I can always talk to her, but, again, I have no desire to worry her. If anything, you could argue that I’m doing better than I was previously—my beatings have been slightly shorter than they once were, and of a lesser intensity, and I’ve actually gained a few pounds. So, why is it that, on the inside, I feel ten times worse? I hate myself. Genuinely, I hate myself. Most others do as well. Even Fuyumi must have something she hates about me, right?

I don’t want to do anything. Even writing this is incredibly boring, and I just don’t have any motivation to do it, but here I am. I don’t care if I’m beaten all day every day. I just don’t care. I’m sick of being sad all the fucking time. I’d much rather be numb like this than constantly be breaking down. I don’t know what else to say.

I haven’t been able to sleep well. Whenever the serendipitous occasion arises that I fall asleep, it’s only ever for an hour or two. I wake up again, and I can’t fall back asleep. Why can’t I sleep? I’m exhausted every day, but I can’t sleep.

I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine. I’ve never been better. Everything is fine. Everything is okay. Everything is just fine. It’s fine. My life is fine. It’s all fine. Everything gets better. All wounds fade with time. The thoughts will dissipate. It’s fine. I’m fine. Is that what he sees this all as? Because I can’t believe that lie. I’m not fine. Nothing about this is fine. I’ve been abused by a manipulative father for years. How is this fine? Please tell me… 

I can’t eat. Liquid or solid, I can’t hold it down. It’s been almost a month since I last ate something. I’ve been able to drink water every now and again, but I can’t eat. I’m so fucking tired of this all. What’s next? Honestly, I hope I die. I can’t stand this life anymore. What’s the easiest way to die that has a high probability of being successful?

I couldn’t care less about my grades anymore. I don’t care if he beats the shit out of me for it. I don’t care if he tells me I’m a fucking failure and should never have been born. I know. I know already. I’m tired. I can’t take it. I keep living, but that’s just because of Fuyumi and Natsuo. I’ve never let them see how much it hurts. But when the world felt like an ocean attempting to pry my lips apart, I needed their help more than ever. I didn’t want to tell them, but I gave subtle clues, thinking that maybe…that would be enough. It wasn’t. I can’t blame them, either. It’s all my fault. I should’ve told them if I really wanted that help, but I guess I didn’t, and I don’t plan on telling anyone about the way I feel now. I really want to fucking die.

He forced me to eat. Why? He doesn’t feed me. He doesn’t let me eat. He doesn’t _want_ me to eat. Why now? Why now is making me eat this dire? I don’t know. He told me I’m better off dead, so why? Just so he can continue to abuse me? Is that all I am? I don’t want to be here. I _am_ better off dead. I feel so sick. I know I’m just going to throw it up. I hate that feeling and that odious taste. 

It’s Sunday—my favorite day of the week since that bastard is guaranteed to leave—and Fuyumi was begging me to eat earlier. I don’t bother trying, but I feel so guilty every time I shake my head at her. I’m legitimately starving, but my body won’t let me keep anything down. Both Fuyumi and Natsuo are acutely concerned. I mean, I would probably feel the same if what's happening to me happened to one of them. Wanting to help but not being able to do anything, offering support while knowing it grazes past the recipient, forced to watch as the person you love suffers, is beaten every day, and is on the verge of starving to death. I’m sorry… I felt so bad that I went up to Fuyumi and Natsuo and just hugged them. We didn’t say anything. I brought my arms around them, and they gently hugged me back. We stood like that for at least ten minutes. I love them, but I still don’t know why they love me. 

There’s a boy in my class with green hair and freckles that sits next to me, and I saw that he was writing something. I couldn’t help but espy that paper from the corner of my eye and gradually piece together parts of what he’d been writing. He wrote on that paper yesterday as well, if I remember correctly. But I realized…that it was a suicide note. He’s always getting shoved around by another guy with spikes of blonde hair. The blonde guy thought it would be hilarious to pick me up because I’m 4’11” and fourteen years old. I have the same class with them that leads into our shared lunch period, so I followed the green-haired boy at a distance, and sure enough, he was heading for the roof. I managed to talk him out of jumping, and he said that he would wait at least another day.

Why did I ask him not to jump when that’s precisely what I want to do? Why did I intervene at all? I hate how much I care. I don’t want him to kill himself, but I now feel obligated to also not kill myself.

I finally ate something without regretting it. Fuyumi was so happy. Even Natsuo was proud of me. All I did was eat a slice of bread with nothing on it. I’m disappointed in myself. Haji really does suit me.

I had a geometry test today, and all it was about was stuff with triangles. Like, the altitude, median, centroid, and some proofs to go along with it. I knew how to do everything on the test, but I left everything blank. I didn’t even write my fake name on it. Instead, I spent my time thinking of how I’d word a suicide note.

My math teacher asked me if there was a reason why I keep turning everything in blank. I said he’d know on the last day of school, or maybe a little later than that. He asked me if I didn’t understand the material, but that’s not it. I know what I’m _supposed_ to be doing, but I don’t have the motivation to do anything. He somewhat quizzed me on the material we’d been learning, so I did it, and sure enough, I was right.

You know what’s just amazing? Please note the fucking sarcasm… It’s the last day of school for this year, and I thought I’d celebrate it by finally ending it all. Obviously, that didn’t happen. At least, not yet. I was going to jump, so after school was over, I went to the rooftop. I saw the blonde guy that constantly bullied…I think his name is Midoriya. I noticed he was holding a note, so I asked him why he was up on the rooftop. He said it was none of my fucking business, so I asked what the paper was for, and again, he told me—more aggressively—it was none of my fucking business. I asked if he wanted to talk about anything, and he grit his teeth and started to cry. 

“You remember that nerdy kid with green hair and freckles?” he inquired while wiping his tears with the sleeve of his uniform. “He hasn’t been at school for the past week. Y’know why? H-He overdosed, and now he’s fucking dead. It’s all my fucking fault.” 

I honestly wasn’t sad at all. “Whether it is or isn’t, please don’t jump,” I replied.


	14. 2 |「Broken」

[𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭-𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧]  
𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐨 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐢

He gave me a vexed look. “Then why the fuck are _you_ up here?” I told him that I wanted to sit for a while and think. “You’re a shit liar, Haji. Stop trying to play the fucking savior when you’re the same as me. I-I fucking hate it. I get it—I’m not as strong as I try to present myself as.” His shoulders trembled.

“I’m not going to do nothing or encourage you to do it… I think you’re still strong in your own ways, though.” I’d only attempted to console someone once before, and that had been Midoriya, so I had absolutely no idea if what I was saying was helpful or not. “I know it’s hard…but if the people around you keep pressing on, doesn’t that give you more of an incentive to keep going than if the people chose to end their lives early?”

Bakugou crossed his arms. “Tch. Guess you’re right. Deku left, and now I fucking want to die more than ever. What point are you trying to prove?”

“If you died, I’d probably follow, but if you keep living, I’d have more of a reason to also keep living. I would say the same thing to anyone else. There are other people like us here. There are others waiting for a moment to end it…and someone else doing it might be what pushes them over the edge. So…”

“So, for the people I’m not gonna give a shit about when I’m dead, I should keep living?” he hissed. “For something that won’t fucking matter, I should keep suffering? Being miserable every goddamn day? Trying to make myself happy without being able to do it?”

“Yes and no. You won’t be sad or angry forever, but it might take some suffering to find a reprieve. Just a moment of respite might not seem like it’s worth it if you weigh it against the bad things in life, but I think that that’s what makes the good moments more memorable and impactful. You appreciate the smaller things in life that we take for granted.”

I wanted to walk away and bolt my jaw shut. Everything I had the audacity to say to him was everything I myself would not deign to live by. I didn’t want him to die, but a part of me just didn’t care. I don’t know how to describe the feeling, but something was telling me to help him, and I obeyed, but it felt like someone else took hold of me and started to speak.

He crumbled down to the floor while attempting to cease the flow of his tears. “I hate how fucking optimistic people can be,” he growled with broken breaths. “I can’t look at things like that. When something good finally happens, I-I know it’s gonna be torn away. I _know_ it won’t last forever. It feels like my life _wants_ to see me suffer; it wants to mock me. A-And then I fucking break. I don’t even know why the hell I’m telling you all of this.”

“Make the most out of it. If you know it’s only going to last for a little bit, take advantage of it. If you were in the desert with no water and suddenly found a source of water, would you walk away because it would only last for a little bit? Or would you use it to your advantage and try to make it out alive? You don’t realize how grateful you are for that water until it’s an elusive sight.”

Bakugou shook his head as his hands curled into fists. “I don’t fucking get how you can think of it like that—so positively. But I guess I can try. Tch. I’d just make a fool out of myself if I didn’t.” He sighed, and as he glanced up to me, I held my hand out to him. “Yeah, right. Nice offer, but I’d pull you to the floor.” He lifted himself off the ground. “But, oi. Tch. I picked on ya before… I shouldn’t have. I wanted to make fun of you cuz I’d convinced myself I could be stronger, so I’d show that off to look strong. You have your own goddamn reasons for being like this, and I don’t need to make things worse.”

Honestly, as grateful as I was for our interaction, I just wanted to leave to do precisely what I’d asked him not to do. “I’m not mad,” I reassured him. “We both have our reasons. But…I should be going.”

“I can…walk you home,” he brusquely offered; but I promptly shook my head. “Yer Quirkless, right?” I nodded slowly. “You ever been ambushed by villains?” I shook my head. “No fucking offense, but you’re the perfect target. Never know when some bastard’s gonna strike outta the blue.”

I could tell he was concerned, even if he expressed that in his own way, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to allow him to accompany me part of the way home. “I guess. Okay.” I started walking off, and for once, I wasn’t alone. Though, the brisk walk did prove to be predominantly silent.

Finally, I decided to pluck up the confidence to initiate a conversation with him. “I’ve never seen a villain in person before. Have you?”

He furrowed his brows and transiently pursed his lips. “You’ve _never_ seen a villain in person before?” I nodded at his query. “You must be hella lucky, or you just don’t leave your house. One attacked me at the start of the year. Tch. It fucking went on the news and shit. You didn’t hear about it?” I shook my head. “One of the shittiest moments of my life. That damn ol’ Deku…”

I wasn’t sure of what to say to him. “There’s nothing that can be done about it now,” I replied. “I’m sure it was difficult to go through, but it’s over. It won’t erase the lingering memories and apprehensive thoughts, or the wounds and scars. but we can’t rewrite the history that we’ve already made.”

“Tch. I fucking hate that you’re right. But, oi. How are ya holdin’ up? You walk a helluva while to get to school.”

I shrugged. “I’m fine, I guess. I’ve had worse days.” I stared at the concrete below, and my body shuddered at my upcoming beating that worked just like clockwork.

His glare was simultaneously irked and perturbed. “You seriously wanna call this _fine?”_

“Maybe.” I let out a sigh and stopped about a block away from home. “I really appreciate how kind you’ve been to me, though. But you should start heading back home. Mine’s not far.”

“You were kind to an asshole like me. Not that I felt obligated to do jack shit… Tch. Later, Haji.” Perhaps it slipped his mind that this was our last year attending the same middle school together.

You’d think it’s weird to be called Haji when my last name is Todoroki, but Haji is the last name I’ve grown accustomed to. If anything, Todoroki doesn’t sound like it suits me. That’s odd to think about. Who am I? Am I Shoto Todoroki, or am I Shoto Haji? I’m both, yet I can’t be both. What a quagmire. I don’t like thinking about this.

I’m still writing because Fuyumi and Natsuo have decided to abscond with me from this hellhole of a household. They’ve found a place for us to stay, and we’re leaving tonight. I should be happy. I should be grateful. I should be relieved. I’m free, right? No. I think like Bakugou does as well. I’m just not happy. I know it won’t last forever. He’ll find us, right? Everything will get better to be ripped apart. Like Bakugou said…I will “fucking break.” Why did I say all of that to him? I suppose he’ll do what he wishes with it. Maybe he’ll break. Maybe he’ll live. I don’t know. Whatever happens is up to him. But I… I’ve written it before, so why does it suddenly feel so wrong to write? Like a hand grips mine and a voice tells me not to write it? I want it, but it makes my stomach churn to write it. I want to die. If I’d never encountered Bakugou on the roof, I would have been dead. It would have been over. Maybe it’s selfish. Maybe it’s cowardly. Maybe it’s cruel. But I can’t help how I feel right now… I wish I could make the pain vanish. Take a few pills and mitigate the pain. I can’t. No matter what medicine it is, it won’t heal my longing for death. If only there was a cure for being suicidal. I really don’t like writing that word.

Fuyumi and Natsuo made cold soba for me since it’s the last day of school for the year, but it didn’t even look appetizing. Why? I love cold soba., but I didn’t want to eat it. I said I’d eat it later, but all I accomplished in saying that was worrying them. I hate myself. They do so much for me, and they’re my reasons to keep living, but I can’t even eat the food they specifically made for me because they know it’s my favorite? I fucking hate myself.

Endeavor found out. How the hell am I writing this? Because I ran. Because I’m a coward. Because I hope someone finds this and takes care of the trash that I call a father—I’m too afraid to do anything. He’s beating them. I betrayed them. Why didn’t I stay behind? Why didn’t I help them? Why didn’t I repay a single one of the fucking miracles they gave me?! I deserve to die. They gave me everything. They did everything for me. I was their reason to keep moving forwards. Why am I not the one being beaten? I’ll take three times the pain. But here I am. My body moved on its own. It fled. I don’t want to go back. Even after all they’ve done for me, I’m so fucking selfish… I should be the one taking all the beatings, but I’m too scared to go back. I want to cry, and I don’t know why. But everything is numb. I’m sorry. Fuyumi, Natsuo, Bakugou, Midoriya, and all of my teachers…I’m so sorry.

I could hear their screams as I ran. Their ululations of my name were needles in my ears: But I saw an opportunity to run, and I bit down on it. What is wrong with me? I didn’t do anything wrong. I just ran. I escaped. I got away from being tortured. But I also did everything wrong. I left them there to be beaten. They were screaming for help…and after all the help they gave me just to keep living, I left them to suffer. Am I really the victim anymore? Surely someone heard them… Someone is coming for them, right? It’s not my fault. But I’m still culpable for it transpiring at all.

I should’ve killed myself earlier. None of this would’ve happened. That bastard wouldn’t be beating them. They wouldn’t have to live with knowing that their youngest brother would take all of their love…then smile, stab them in the back, and run. They gave me a reason to live, and what did I ever give them? A hug. That’s it. I used them. I left them behind. They wanted to help me. They wanted to heal me. They wanted only the best for me. What did I do? I just kept thinking about how painful life was, how much I wanted to die, how fucking horrible I felt… I just kept worrying them because I would reject the remedies for the pain that they gave me… I just kept digging the daggers deeper into their backs. That’s right. I’ve always had a dagger to their backs. I’ve just been slowly pushing the daggers in. I’m a reprehensible abomination. I’m not even sad. I’m a broken monster. What have I done? It hurts so much, but it just feels like a paper cut. Nothing I say or do could ever forgive what I’ve done. I left them to suffer. I couldn’t stop him from killing himself. I lied to him and gave him advice I myself can’t bear to follow. I’m nothing but a mistake. Nothing… Nothing I’ve done has had a good ending. Nothing. They’re probably dead. He probably beat them to death. Why couldn’t it have been me? They deserved to be alive… Soon, I’m going to die. Very soon. How ironic my death is. But…I’m the reason why it couldn’t have been me. No matter how you look at it, it’s my fault. I’m the one that might as well have been beating them. Their blood is essentially on my hands, and those hands still hold the daggers I used to stab them both. Yet, I still wonder why things ended up like this…


End file.
